


Nephilimic Parallax

by Darke_Eco_Freak



Category: Devil May Cry, DmC: Devil May Cry
Genre: Angel Wings, Angels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Canon Divergence, Gen, Minor Original Character(s), POV Multiple, Post-Canon Fix-It, do not copy to another site, past Kat/Vergil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:34:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 70,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22736539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darke_Eco_Freak/pseuds/Darke_Eco_Freak
Summary: Mundus is dead...Mundus is dead! They've killed him and the world is free and the path to rule is clear, except it's not. Except Vergil can barely stand, let alone take a throne. Except Dante is exhausted and needs a break, so they'll have one. Just long enough to get their bearings and sort themselves out. They will rule, eventually.
Relationships: Dante & Kat (DmC), Dante/Vergil (DmC)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	1. Angels' Hell

**Author's Note:**

> specific gore warnings: graphic throat cutting, decapitation (graphic & non-graphic), self-harm via razor blade & sword, prison related torture, description of bruises & broken bones. 
> 
> general: mentions of alcohol, child abuse, & drug abuse.

There is a plan, one he plotted and coursed and detailed within an inch of its life.

There is an order to these events, this day, and their…ascension.

Their father was demonic, terrible and sinful; he gave them their power. Their mother was angelic, horrible and virtuous; she gave them their resilience. Sparda, Black Knight of the Demon King, and Eva, Power of the Heavenly Host, together they had revived a dying race and planted the seed of their vengeance. In their sons, their twin Nephilim.

And now, the world’s waiting, holding its pinprick breath as Vergil wheezes in the dust.

He… _they_ —they are better than humanity. They’re more than angelic and greater than demonic. They’re the only ones with the power to take Heaven, Hell, and everything in between. It is their birth right, but…but he’s swallowing blood, choking it back down before it floods his throat and creeps past his lips.

No, _no_. This is their chance! He’s worked too hard for this. Worked harder than anyone else in this miserable world, except for his brother but Dante…Dante.

Dante wanted retribution, revenge. Vergil wants _more_.

He wants retribution and justice yes but so much more, control and **_Order_**. He wanted it for Sparda and Eva who Mundus couldn’t leave alone. He wanted it for the rest of his dead race, the Nephilim killed in cold blood for their cold power. He **_wants_** this for his _brother_ , who’s been so cruelly kept from him and so cruelly treated.

Dante deserved this as much as Vergil wanted it so…so why…what is this?

Mundus is **_dead_**. Dead by their hands, Dante and Vergil’s, and now it’s their turn. This is their chance to take the Hell gate and become the rulers Mundus was too short-sighted and arrogant to be. This is _their_ moment!

"You good?" Dante asks, pants. Standing in the rubble, looking down at him knelt in the aftermath.

His brother’s face is streaked with dirt and sweat, caked with blood and pain, but he’s smiling underneath all of that. He’s leaning on his Rebellion and panting hard enough to rattle his bones, but his pulse is excitement quick.

They did it. Dante did it. Vergil’s big brother killed the boogie man that’s haunted them all their lives and Vergil…he…he feels the pop of his jaw as he smiles. Tries to smile. He can’t quite manage around the split lips and dislocated jaw and desperate fight for a good, clean breath. Lord his head is scrambled.

"Vergil? Hey, did that fucker do something?" Dante's concerned now, crouching down with a wet crack of gristle and Vergil swallows, blinks.

Shock. This must be shock. His ribs, Mundus broke them trying to gouge out his heart, and his skin. The skin on his arms and his face, it burnt away under the blaze of Mundus' true power. He’s healing, but slowly, and he’s hurting pretty much everywhere.

Every breath is wet from the blood…shit is he bleeding into his lungs?

“I—I think we’re good,” Vergil breathes, past the blood, past the wet tear somewhere along his oesophagus. Yamato is silent in her sheath, resting quietly content in his palm, and doesn’t advise against him doing this very stupid thing, so it must be fine. Pounding on his chest until a misaligned something _schlicks_ back into place is fine.

It’s a nasty feeling, makes him queasy, but it’s f— _fuck_ —

He’s pitching forward before he can stop himself. Down on his hands and knees, hawking up bloody bile and no! No this isn’t—they—fuck!

“Fucking hell, Verge,” Dante groans, reaching for him, and Vergil welcomes the touch. Even if there’s nothing Dante can do.

Maybe it’s enough to have Dante crouched over him, rubbing soothing circles between his prickling shoulder blades and keeping him from pitching into the dust. Or maybe it’s simpler than that, maybe it’s enough to have his brother _here_ with him. Vergil’s damn glad Dante’s here.

“D-Damn it,” he hisses, eyes watering as another heave grinds broken bones together. Grinds his palms into the broken glass and warped metal scattered around, cutting the flesh straight to the bone, right through his gloves.

Mundus took out the fucking skyline in his death throes and now Vergil’s heaving into the ruin of it all.

They can’t make a play for power like _this_. At least, Vergil can’t. His body is aching and bleeding and breaking and he can barely get his lungs to work, much less a demon horde. This is _not_ the ascension he planned.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Dante’s mumbling, words awkward like Vergil’s not heard from his brother. He’s clearly unused to caring for another person but he’s trying, for Vergil, and that is…it is heart-warming. Even if his heart _does_ feel as though it’s been mashed into a fine pâté at the moment. 

Eventually his wretched heaving calms and the only thing left in his stomach is a cramping ache. There’s blood in his mouth, from…Vergil doesn’t even care where anymore. There’s blood and there’s stomach acid and there’s Dante helping him sit back up.

“Follow my finger, alright? Just with your eyes,” Dante murmurs, holding one crooked finger in front Vergil’s face, moving it side to side. And he finds himself surprised, pleasantly so for once; he hadn’t thought his brother knew the first thing about first aid. Why would he?

He doubts a concussion could affect either of them, or rather, could stick around long enough to be an issue. But, Vergil does as his big brother says, and tracks the movement. Subtly taking stock of Dante as well.

A black eye’s blooming a lovely—no ugh, that’s _not_ lovely, Dante’s hurt that can’t be _lovely,_ but the colour is…eye catching. Rich red in the blotchy centre, spiralling into midnight purple blue at the edges. There’s even a hint of jaundiced gold underneath, where the skin’s already healing. Vergil won’t say it’s not an appealing blush of colours, but his stomach churns to think of it on his brother.

Dante doesn’t deserve to have bruises beaten into his face. Or a split lip that’s still bleeding human’s red blood, dripping into his shirt. Vergil tsks at that, Dante will need a new wardrobe after this, he _deserves_ one.

Black eyes and split lips, broken blood vessels bleeding into the eye itself, none of it’s healing as it should because bigger hurts are being prioritised. Vergil can’t see under those scruffy clothes, but he can imagine the bruises spreading along every inch of skin and the sickening reconstruction of bones sliding underneath it.

When Dante puts his finger down, Vergil doesn’t even have to keep imagining. There's a gory bit of gristle sticking out of his brother's broken nose, cut right through the thin skin. Surely that must hurt? But it will hurt more in the long run if it isn’t set back into the skin, Vergil knows that, and he regrets this.

Dante doesn’t try to stop him, doesn’t flinch away when Vergil’s fingers skate along his broken nose. He’s too busy wiping a dribble of blood off Vergil’s chin, and even when he realises what his brother’s doing, Dante doesn’t stop him. In return, Vergil grips the bone firmly and jams it back into place with a swift-sick _crack_.

"Fuck!"

It's a growl, bone jolting and guttural, spat through clenched teeth. Vergil can see the flicker of pupils, pinpricks blowing wide and reacting to the pain, but Dante doesn't push him away. In fact, Dante just pouts, and bats his lashes like he's some adorable little thing and not the most powerful creature this side of Heaven. Vergil snorts, then hisses when Dante picks a piece of his shirt out of his still healing burns and no, they can't stay here.

This is too open; anything could get the jump on them. They need to retreat, regroup, and recover. They need rest and, somehow, they’re safe enough to do that now. Vergil doesn’t have to draw up wards around his house or sleep with one eye on Limbo. He can…sleep.

"Come on brother, let's go home," Vergil murmurs, patting Dante's cheek.

"Sure, I'm gonna pass out for a week," Dante mumbles, split lips quirking into a genuine smile.

The getting up is harder than it should be. Vergil's legs ache and Dante weaves like a drunk, and the shifting debris under their feet certainly doesn’t help. In the end, it’s a mess of leaning on their swords and grabbing at each other that finally gets them upright and on their feet. Still unsteady, still liable to fall over at any second, but they're standing and that's the important thing.

Around them, there is only debris. Skyscrapers broken and scattered like a wrathful child's toy blocks, roads torn up and leaking sewage into the street. The smell is horrendous, and Vergil automatically draws back from it, into Dante, who rolls his eyes. Dante doesn't seem to mind the squalor, Dante doesn't ever seem to mind much, and Vergil wonders how he might change that.

He'll need his brother to care if they're going to protect the world together. Rule or shape it, whichever they end up doing, they will do it together just as they have done this together. Vergil swears it, but first...

Dante's first step nearly downs them again, but they work out a system, Vergil's arm around Dante's waist, Dante's hooked over Vergil's shoulder. They hop and lurch more than they walk but it's manageable. The swords help.

Vergil wants to apologise every time he digs Yamato's kojiri into the dirt and grime of the broken city, but it hurts to move his mouth very much right now. He'll apologise later when his everything doesn't feel crisped over and raw; she understands.

"Hey guys!" Kat yells, waving from a crumbling overpass. She's alive, as they left her, and Dante's soft relief is enough to make Vergil glad she survived.

Truthfully, he'd never planned on her making it this far, and perhaps neither did she. Kat is the...self-sacrificing sort, willing to die for her beliefs and put her organization before herself, it was why he'd kept her around. Psychics were useful but they were dime a dozen in Mundus' capital city, too much demonic energy concentrated in a single place had taken its toll on the population.

The asylums were fill to the bursting with humans who could see through the thin veil, most of them sedated into the same passivity as the rest of the population. Only, they got pleasant little pills forced down their throats instead of Virility. Most of them went truly mad after a few months, others did it in a few years, and by the end, they could barely be considered human.

Vergil could've had any of those, broken them out of their padded cells and fed them a cocktail of drugs to deal with the withdrawal. He could have bought one off the streets, the only other place psychics ended up, it wouldn’t have been hard but Kat. Kat was loyal without pay and that was useful.

She's useful now, herding them towards a car that's only slightly crushed. The back doors are gone, and the hood is dented but the thing is running, and Vergil can't much complain when he can barely walk. Dante drags, Vergil pushes, and Kat shoves until they're sprawled across the backseat. There's no question of who'll be driving, Kat, because one armed or not, she's in far better condition than either of them.

"You did it, I can't believe you did it. Now the whole world can see the demons and fight back," Kat rambles as the car splutters to life, wheezing painfully and Vergil grimaces in commiseration. His chest feels hollowed out and caved in and too tight all at once; lungs pushing against broken ribs, broken ribs protesting the movement.

Dante shifts and shuffles until Vergil is mostly on top of him, getting the weight off his chest, and Vergil hums his thanks. He would say it but there’s cotton in his head and numbness in his jaw that make words hard. It’s all he can do to stay awake as Kat pulls away from the destroyed overpass onto a street that’s a hazard all its own even without the lesser demons spilling onto it.

They’ll have to deal with that later. After. Sometime. Vergil knows they will. Him and Dante are the strongest things on the planet, and they closed the Hell gate, they’ll have to do something about it. Later though.

Maybe he drowses during the drive, maybe he just blacks out. Vergil can’t exactly say but he’s blinking awake when the car gutters to a stop.

For one second, two— _the span of half a lifetime_ —he doesn’t know where he is. He feels; Dante’s shoulder against his cheek, Dante’s hand splayed across the small of his back, Yamato slipping out of his slack grip. He hears; Dante’s soft breath rumbling in his chest, the pulse of blood under the splotchy bruises, Kat whispering to herself in shushing little sounds. He feels; beaten half to Hell and back, too hot and too cold and too tired to do anything about it. He hears; the howl of demons off in the distance, the growl of his own empty stomach, and Kat get out of the car.

A hand wraps around his ankle, tugs, and Vergil resists the urge to kick out; it’s only Kat. Where did she take them?

“Safehouse, the one by the water,” Kat says. Ah. Alright.

“Should still be good, Mundus just wanted the—he wanted the people,” her voice trembles, on the edge of tears, and Vergil’s confused, why?

They were all willing to die for this, each and every one of them. When the broadcasts started going out…well, they’d never gotten far enough, things had happened so quick after he found Dante. If they hadn’t though, if Dante hadn’t shown himself at that club, Vergil’s supplier would’ve come through within the month. The entire Order would’ve been outfitted with cyanide capsules and they wouldn’t have had to die like they did in Mundus’ attack.

Had he told Kat that? He can’t remember. Doesn’t matter anymore, everyone’s dead now regardless, same as Mundus and his fetid foetus.

“Dante,” he slurs, patting at his brother’s chest, feeling for the heartbeat steady in his head.

“m up,” Dante groans, heartbeat picking up until its awake and alert. Vergil finds himself frowning at that. He prefers the sleep-slow thud, like distant thunder, the sound of his brother’s implicit trust in him.

“C’mon guys, the streets are a wreck out here,” Kat whines, tugging harder at his ankle, refusing to let go until Vergil glares blearily at her. Even lifting his head enough for that is a chore but he manages, and she drops her hand, guilty.

Touch is something they’re working on. Her giving, him accepting, and vice-versa. There was a time touch between them was simple, an easy give and take but…but that time is over, and it’s for the better. Everything he’s done has been for the better.

“Stand back,” he orders, waiting for her to scramble away, before he wriggles himself out of the car. Shoving with his hands, bending his legs, and hissing when his feet hit the ground. His knees nearly buckle under his weight, stiff from the healing on the ride over.

How long did they take? The sky’s dark, stars already peeking through the haze, and Vergil…he feels calmer. There’s no thrum under his skin or buzz in his head. There’s no demonic influence trying to bend him to its will. He feels **_free_**.

Vergil wants to…he wants to run for miles, he wants to dive into the river and splash in the polluted waters. He wants to climb to the top of the tallest building left in this wretched city and scream until his throat tears. He’s free. He. Is. Free!

“Help me up?” Dante asks, and Vergil grabs him. Ducks into the car and lifts his brother out, holding him by the waist and spinning him around. He shouldn’t, oh he shouldn’t, but Vergil’s too happy to care about should.

He laughs, wild and sharp, and he hugs Dante and he spins them until he’s dizzy. Until he slams into a wall hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs. Until he can’t see straight but still can’t wipe the jaw-popping grin off his face.

“Woah, congrats to us bro, lemme down?” Dante snickers, bloody lips splitting in the same grin Vergil knows is on his own face. A mirror image, perfect reflection. They’re together again, whole again.

Vergil _does_ let Dante down but keeps hold of his wrist, tugs him over to where Kat’s waiting. She looks happy, exhausted and dirty, but happy. She should be, Dante saved her life, he didn’t have to, but he did, and Vergil hopes she’s grateful for that. They might have to have a conversation about that later, after things calm down.

For now, they all trudge through the door when Vergil’s keycode opens it. There’s not much in this safehouse, running water, canned food, and a few places to sleep. This wasn’t meant to be a long-term arrangement, just something for operatives making deals down at the docks, but this will do until they’re on their feet again. Them being him and Dante of course.

“You wanna check the net? Twitter crashed twice already, and I think Instagram went down a few minutes ago,” Kat’s suggesting but Vergil’s ignoring her. He does _not_ want actually.

He walks away from her, tugging Dante with him, until they’re all the way across the cramped space and standing in front the beds. Bunk beds to be specific, with ratty mattresses barely wide enough for a single person and too short for either of them. Dante drops first, drops heavy, and the frame bangs against the wall with a dusty creak.

“We can check all that later,” Vergil grunts, dropping next to his brother. He refuses to let Dante out of his sight ever again. Having to split up to take down Mundus it—no, they’re fine now, _Dante’s_ fine now.

They’re fine but Vergil still tips over, coat and all, and Dante doesn’t seem to mind the squeeze. Knowing what he does about his brother’s life, Vergil doesn’t think Dante would complain if all they had were a few rags on the floor. Vergil was the luckier one between them, less of Sparda in him, less demons chasing him down.

He got to be adopted by a nice human couple, millionaires that wanted a charity case to make them look good. Seraphina had taken one look at his ash white hair and decided he had to be hers; they matched. Dominic heard him speak the once and signed the papers as quickly as the orphanage could present them.

Compared to Dante’s string of orphanages and foster families, Vergil had it so much easier. Not any more though. Vergil found him, Dante saved them, and now Vergil is going to give his brother everything he’s never had. After they sleep.

Dante, unlike Vergil, takes the time to kick off his boots and shuck off his jacket before laying down. And it’s a tight squeeze, of course it is, but Vergil refuses to move and Dante doesn’t seem to mind. They curl into each other, Dante flinging long limbs over Vergil, half crawling onto him, and Vergil presses against the wall as much as he can.

Kat…Kat is off somewhere, off doing something, but that’s not important. The steady rise and fall of Dante’s chest is the important thing. The slow thud of his heart and quiet brush of his breath is the only thing Vergil cares about. He falls asleep to those important things, forcing his own heart to match Dante’s, to breathe as slow and deep until he doesn’t have to think about it anymore.

He falls asleep on a creaky old bed full of dust, tangled with his brother, and it’s the best sleep he’s gotten in years.

* * *

It's the slick schk of metal sliding through skin. It's the cool tease of sharpened silver and a honed edge, perfectly balanced in the hand and perfectly wicked through the muscle. It's the wet _guh_ and animal grunt when he twists and curves and cuts right through those finnicky bones.

He can feel it along the blade, the texture change jolting in his fingers, it's a grating that replaces the spongy squish. Every slice is brutal and merciless and beautiful; first the skin then the muscle and bone, Rebellion cuts through all of it so easy. She doesn't care, she doesn't mind, so long as he wields her, she’ll cut just fine.

* * *

He wakes up with a breath that shreds his throat. With a throb and an ache and a head full of cotton.

Burning eyes fly open and Vergil snarls, keeps it low in his throat but it’s still a snarl. Why is he awake? Something’s wrong. What’s _wrong?_

He’s shoved against a wall, his back hurts. His ribs are still healing, they throb. He didn’t wash his mouth before he fell asleep and now it tastes like death warmed over. Stained with blood, coated with dust, and gritty with his own charred skin. Eugh.

There’s plenty wrong but none of it is _right_. His bodily discomfort isn’t why he’s glaring into the darkness, fingers curling around nothing. Dante. Dante’s gone and Vergil’s cold, he’s _freezing_ but his skin prickles too, it _burns_. He groans, low in his chest, but the sound still echoes too loud in the empty room.

How long did he sleep? Where’s Dante? What’s the status on the demons? Where’s Dante? How are the governments of the world trying to spin this? And where is Dante?

The safehouse has no windows, they were too easy an access point, thus too dangerous to keep. The glass got knocked out and boarded up then taped over, black garbage bags stretched over the boards to block out any prying eyes. The doors scrape along the floor, no knives slipping underneath them and no gas breathing through.

The only light is ambient light pollution; it’s seeping in through the crack between the roof and the tops of the walls. Vergil hadn’t been able to find a solution in the few hours he’d had to fix up this place but he’s glad for it now. The gloom is easier to see in than full dark, and in the gloom, he can see Dante.

“Sorry, had to take a whizz,” Dante murmurs, but his voice thunders in the musty silence, slaps against the cobwebbed walls and stirs the dust motes.

Where’s Dante? There’s Dante; leaning against the counter, drinking something with his head tipped back and throat bare to the world. Where? There; a black silhouette looming in the dark, a pale throat bobbing.

In the dead silence that wet swallow is loud enough to curl in Vergil’s ears, too loud, so loud, and he can taste the caffeinated sugar of whatever Dante’s drinking.

Not Virility. He never bought it on principle. Coke then, something to wash the taste of the day out.

“Time?” Vergil mutters, voice rasping uncomfortably, fuck his throat is dry. He should’ve eaten something before he slept.

“Nearly four, heard some gunshots around two,” Dante says, casual and simple. Vergil wants that kind of calm. He’s barely awake and his brain’s already buzzing. Have any demons tried to fill the power vacuum? Have Mundus’ remaining generals crawled out of Hell yet? Are they looking for Sparda’s bastards?

What about the humans? Do the leaders Mundus’ kept in the loop know what’s happening? Have they realised? Fuck, he’s thirsty.

The Order had more members than just the contingent at the head office during the raid. Vergil made sure they had more, different cells of them, and never let them know about each other. The true size of the Order was a secret kept by nobody but himself; he never could have left it with the humans.

All of their disparate cells know what to do though. They knew what the demons meant, Vergil had spent too long explaining for them not to, so now they’ll be moving into position for phase two. 

First make the world see, then make the world understand.

When Vergil’s healed, and Dante’s briefed, Order members will start the secondary propaganda feeds. Under Barbas, they could only do quick fire, DDOS backed videos. Piggyback off newsfeeds and deliver carefully crafted bytes of information; anarchist rhetoric had been the easiest to disseminate. People reacted to crazy men in masks telling them the world wasn’t real. They talked about it, and most importantly, they _remembered_ it.

Now the Order can be more subtle, they can attack the subconscious without having to wipe their tracks. They already have all the proof they need running wild, so it’s just a matter of shunting the pieces into place and shifting the rhetoric. From anarchist to militant, from crazy men in masks spouting bullshit to reasonable grievances from reasonable people. Mob mentality will do the rest.

“Can I get a sip of that?” he asks, politely because one of them should have manners. Though Yamato is an amused presence in the back of his head, wondering where those manners have been all these years. Fond, and amused, she’s pleased with him and with Dante, but tired too. Very tired. Vergil doesn’t blame her.

She settles down again as he stretches out slowly, cracking all of those locked up joints, and falls back into sleep when he focuses on Dante again. And, even with his better-than-human-demon-and-angel eyesight, Vergil can’t tell if the stretch of his brother’s cheek is a smile or a sneer. Dante’s face is tilted towards him, out of the ambient glow, and it’s hard to make out the exact expression there.

There was probably a time Vergil would’ve been able to read his twin’s body language perfectly, a tilt of the head, quirk of the brow, he would’ve _understood_. Not anymore, not right now, because their demented uncle was too selfish and short-sighted and _scared_ to let them be. So, Vergil has to _wait_ for Dante to close the gap between them.

“Sure, don’t drink it all.”

Dante’s close enough now to see—yes, to see his skin-teeth smile. There’s something sharp about it, predator sharp, and Vergil finds he doesn’t mind it. He and Dante are part of a predator species, on both sides, but a demon wouldn’t see the subtle playfulness behind this smile. And an angel wouldn’t pick up on the scant kindness flickering in those eyes.

Dante hands over the can with a smile and Vergil takes it with a nod. Dragging his aching bones into something close to sitting so he doesn’t spill Dante’s drink. Dante’s drink which is sweet, bitterly sweet, and cold, teeth achingly cold, and the _best_ thing Vergil’s ever tasted.

The first swallow is perfunctory, something to wet his throat, but the second is desperate, and he almost chokes on the third. There’s too much sweet and too much cold and Dante’s coke, yes coke, burns every inch of the way. Vergil considers spitting it out, for all of a second he thinks about it, then swallows and holds out the can.

“Didn’t drink all of it,” he mumbles petulantly, breathing too hard, swallowing harder, and glad for the dark. He doesn’t know what expression he must be making right now and isn’t keen on finding out. Because Dante would tell him, Vergil remembers that; Dante liked pointing out all the ways they were different and strange faces were fair game.

Maybe Dante’s matured, though Vergil doubts, because he doesn’t say anything when he takes back his coke. Nor when he sits on the edge of the bed. In the gloom, he looks much smaller than he is, even lither than usual, and Vergil wants to protect him. Though his throat is still burning, and his body is still healing, he wants to wrap himself around his brother and dare the rest of the world to touch him.

No one should, no one is good enough. Only Vergil, he’s the only one that deserves Dante’s attention and affection, and Dante’s the only person that deserves _his_ protection.

“Kat’s gonna need that arm checked,” Dante starts conversationally, and Vergil huffs. He doesn’t understand the interest. Kat is Kat. She’s nothing special as far as psychics go and average for a witch.

Dante could do so much better than some girl with trauma induced devotion.

“She said it could wait but it can’t,” and Dante swings those piercing eyes over to him. And Vergil doesn’t know how to say no.

He should. He most definitely should. The streets must be a mess right now, demons are bound to be on the prowl and neither of them are up to scratch just yet. They should wait until morning, that would be the smart move, but…

Dante doesn’t care about the smart move. He’s not a strategist, clearly, and prefers action. Keeping him in the Order headquarters was hard enough, keeping him here might be impossible, and like Hell is Vergil going to let Dante out of his sight right now. They need to stick together until he can get a handle on the situation.

So, he does something that’s particularly stupid.

“I have a few Order contacts across town, I’ll make some calls,” Vergil says, forcing the concern into his voice, for his brother.

Kat’s already living on borrowed time, but Vergil won’t say that. He doesn’t want Dante mad at him for something so trivial.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be fine,” he lies, patting Dante’s thigh, “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

* * *

The knife’s unwieldy in his hand, improperly balanced, and he doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does. A kitchen knife wasn’t made to be a weapon, but it can be, and it’s sharp enough to cut when he tests it against his thumb. And it’s sharp enough to bleed when it digs it into Sister Maggie’s throat.

“You’ll burn for this Antonio!” she’s screaming-screeching-spitting, using the name that’s not his but he doesn’t know how he knows _that_ either. He presses harder instead of thinking about it.

Harder, harder, until she’s bleeding, until her blood is burning his fingers and gushing over his wrist. His skin hisses-steams-boils, and it hurts. It hurts like crying, but everything hurts, and a little more can’t matter.

Antonio who’s not Antonio but isn’t anybody else doesn’t let go of her hair, not even when she thrashes. He’s strong. He’s ruthless.

“We’ll hunt you down boy!” she chokes-gurgles-gasps, and he drags the knife. Back and forth, back and forth, like her voice see-sawing during sermons. Back and forth, back and forth, until her blood bursts and spatters and splats.

* * *

“What the fuck did you do, Vergil?” Rea asks later, after he lets Vergil, Dante, and Kat into his apartment.

Later, after he’s looked at Dante and stared down Vergil and sworn in a language guttural enough to blunt steel. Later, after he’s dealt with Kat’s wound and given her a near lethal dose of morphine before sending her to bed. That kind of later.

Rea waits until it’s only him and Vergil sitting in the quiet kitchen, staring into different points of space, and drinking lukewarm wine. Dante’s asleep in the living room, barely ten steps away, and Vergil can hear every sleep soft breath like they’re his own. Kat’s in the guestroom, dead to the world, and Vergil is in the kitchen drinking.

If he tried, he could imagine himself back in his penthouse apartment after another Order meeting gone long. He would’ve had his laptop there and a glass of pinot noir balanced on the armrest, but he supposes a phone and an excellent cabernet sauvignon aren’t too bad. The wine helps cut through the daze and goes well with the nausea sloshing in his stomach. Still healing.

“What we set out to do,” he answers in that later. After a wild ride through the city with another stolen car. The first one refused to start again but at least the second was intact; Vergil had driven.

In the dark of the world, the city had looked like something right out of a renaissance Hell. There were fires in the distance, flickering and burning out, there were chunks of rubble peppered across the roads, even felled electrical poles sparkling all those hours after. And, in between all the human destruction, there had been Hell burbling through the tears in reality.

He’d made detour after detour to avoid them. Forced the car through tight alleys that loomed and consumed and crawled into his throat like a claustrophobic centipede. Found ways around the chunks of buildings and gaping holes in the streets, inching around them, gunning across with his hands white knuckled around the wheel. Halfway through he’d been ready to get out and fucking walk, but Kat had gotten worse since the fight, face too pale, eyes too dazed. Dante wouldn’t have let them get out.

The only saving grace for his stretched-out patience had been the lack of demons. Mundus’ death throes had scattered the humans, sent them scurrying away like rats from the proverbial sinking ship. The lesser scum stalking the streets were really only interested in fresh meat.

“When you first came to me, you said you wanted to make a better world. Is all this destruction part of that _better world_ , or was I wrong to believe in you?” Rea hums, eyes sharp in the dim light. They see plenty, those eyes, and Vergil wonders if they finally see everything he is. The divine and the demonic and the dishonest.

Rea wears a glamour, a human form stretched tight over his demonic essence, like a second layer of Limbo over his skin. As far as Vergil knows, only powerful demons can hide themselves irrespective of Limbo itself, and Rea _is_ fairly powerful. But what about himself? What about Dante?

They are Nephilim, but they look so human that Dante thought himself one for years. So did Vergil. For years before he remembered, when he answered to the wrong name and lived the wrong life, he thought he was human. And was that why he looked the way he did?

Had his power simply glamoured him to match his expectation? He doesn’t know, but he does know, power can see power. Vergil had known Rea for what he was the second he laid eyes on this “ _lower demon_ ”, glamour be fucking damned.

So, does Rea see him now? Nephilim and burning. Nephilim and cold.

“I will admit, some things haven’t gone according to plan, but one must be willing to make compromises for victory. Was I wrong to believe you understood that, Lord Andrealphus?” and Rea jerks away, ducking his head so Vergil can’t see. Not the brown of his eyes being swallowed up by endless purple. Not the point of his tongue and crook of his beak. Not even the feathers bursting along his throat, blue iridescence shining in the dim kitchen.

Marquis Andrealphus ducks his head and hides his self but Vergil still sees every bit of him. He’s been hiding in that human skin for so long, longer than Sparda’s been dead, before the Host even retreated. Now Limbo’s bursting the dams and ripping away the humanities, and Rea’s looking rather regal.

Before, even when he knew, Vergil could only catch snatches of the double-dealing devil supplying him with insider information, but now, he can see the demon that ruled in Hell until Mundus decided he shouldn’t. The wings are particularly impressive.

“One must, mustn’t they?” Rea murmurs, almost too quiet to hear, too rumbling deep for this world.

Vergil hums, swirling his wine and glancing down at the phone in his hands, at the newsfeeds. He’ll let Rea have his pretend privacy, get the disguise back under control, and read the human side in the meantime. They’re already mounting attacks against the hordes flooding their cities and various half-human bastards are coming out of hiding to help them. Witches are leading the charge, as expected, and militaries are being mowed down.

So far, the estimated death toll’s spilled into the thousands but Vergil expects to hear millions soon. The hordes of Hell have been restrained for too long, they’re hungry for all the blood Mundus never let them have. And, with Heaven’s Host being suspiciously absent from the fight, the bombasts are having a riot of a time.

Dante called himself a devil hunter once, after fighting the Succubus, and Vergil wonders if he’s attached to the title. There are entire countries that would happily pay through the nose for a good devil hunter right now, particularly for one with experience and a Demon King’s blood on his hands. Ultimately Vergil wants to seize control and succeed Mundus, but this unplanned break is offering a unique perspective he hadn’t considered before.

Rea is just one displaced Lord in a churning sea of displeased nobility. Lord Andrealphus, Demon Marquis of the Night, holder of thirty legions, was luckier than some of the others. When Mundus decided he was tired of the existing hierarchy, he’d given the nobility a choice; subservience, exile, or death. Sparda wasn’t the first or only traitor to the Grand Devil on High, but he was the most prominent, and the only one to fuck an angel in his rebellion.

There’s a power vacuum now, yes, and the throne is theirs for the taking, sure, but for how long? What does Vergil know about Mundus’ enemies? Not enough. He knows less than a quarter of the dispossessed Lords who ran off to human world, chasing after miniscule crumbs of power. Half of that quarter supported the Order, desperate to see Mundus dethroned, happy to hurt and annoy, but what about the rest?

If Vergil takes the throne now, he’d never find them. They’d hide harder, dig deeper, and support some other cocky upstart when the opportunity presented itself. He could rule but he’d never have their loyalty and he would always be looking over his shoulder, waiting for their first move.

Now, though, he might have a chance to sniff them all out, learn about them, understand them, and suppress them when he finally takes the throne. Or, he might even sway them to his side, make them understand why _he_ should be the one in control now.

Well, him and Dante, because of _course_ Dante will be by his side. They can rule together, or Dante can be his Knight, like Sparda was to Mundus, but Vergil wouldn’t be foolish enough to turn on his own brother. He would be better—no, he _already_ is.

They fought together, put their lives in each other’s hands, they **_love_** each other. Vergil would do anything for his brother, _will_ do anything, and Dante’s already done the impossible for _him_. They’re better than Sparda and Mundus ever were, stronger, loyal. When they claim their birth right, their rule will never end.

“What about him then? Dante looks _awfully_ familiar,” Rea says, after he’s drawn the tattered edges of his glamour close. After his eyes blink back to brown and his wings tuck back into non-being.

Vergil doesn’t bother dignifying that with an answer, just continues reading an article from Russia. A Behemoth’s emerged there, huge and terrible, and it’s making its way across the country leaving nothing but death and terror in its wake. The blurry pictures of the thing match up with the ancient texts the Order managed to scrounge up and Vergil sips his wine as he considers how to take it down.

The texts had nothing about destroying it, only banishing it back to Limbo, but that’s not an option anymore. Maybe he could severe the spinal column at the neck? Get onto its back with a few teleporting jumps and attack with summoned swords? Or would Yamato be better for this?

Based on the pictures, the Behemoth _is_ wearing its battle armour and the texts said nothing could penetrate that. Nothing except more demon steel of course and what is Yamato if not devil forged perfection?

‘ _Flattery gets you nowhere_.’

And Vergil smiles into his glass. Of course, it doesn’t, he’s just thinking a little too loudly about things he perhaps shouldn’t. And wasn’t she sleeping?

_‘Resting myself.’_

Right, his mistake. The article closes with a sombre appeal to God and he switches it out to one about stygians in China.

“And from the rumours going around, Mundus was looking for a Son of Sparda before his untimely demise. I never put much stock in such supposition, but who really knows? Maybe Sparda’s bastard _did_ come back to avenge his father,” Rea drawls, fishing for information as if he doesn’t already _know_.

After Barbas, Rea was the best source of information, demonic or human, in the world. He’d been useful to the Order and marginally loyal to Sparda, so Vergil had tracked him down in the earliest days to access that vast knowledge. And yes he’d implied, and yes he’d suggested, but Vergil had never once called himself “ _Son of Sparda_ ”, nor had Rea answered to Andrealphus.

Until now of course. Now, when he’s sitting at Rea’s table because he’s one of the few people Vergil trusts enough to ask for help. Not for himself of course, he’d rather drink molten metal, but Rea is good enough for Kat. He’s good enough for information on the Lords Mundus displaced and he’s good for a start. So…

“ _Sons_ , Rea, Sparda and Eva had twin boys. Dear uncle didn’t bother showing up to the baby shower, so he never knew,” and Vergil smiles, slow and sanguine, “but it was always _me_ and Dante. We formed the Order and killed his generals. We kidnapped his whore and ripped apart his squalid spawn. And, when we were ready, the two of us retuned him the kindness he paid our parents.”

Rea’s tail snaps out with a rustle and a slap, huge and blue-green teal with so many eyes patterned onto the feathers, staring-staring at him. Rea blinks, all of those eyes blink, and Vergil cocks a brow, they’re much more impressive than he suspected.

Some are purple and some are green, and some are the loveliest shade of gold, but they’re all wide-wide open with shock and fear and dawning horror. And that’s good, fear is always good. Adoration would be best of course, adoration and loyalty were worth their weight in gold, but fear wasn’t too bad a silver second best.

Fear kept the hordes in line, fear kept the humans submissive, and fear would get Andrealphus on his side quicker than speeches about uniting the circles of Hell and reinstating the nobility. Fear would remind him that unlike Mundus, unlike Sparda, Vergil _and_ Dante were Nephilim. The ones with the power, the ones Hordes and Hosts had hunted into extinction but never annihilation because here they were again. Here they always were again.

Nephilim never died, not entirely, and they weren’t bound to the laws of their parents. They would and could do anything they fucking pleased with a pretty smile on their pretty face and fuck the natural order. They were unnatural, unhinged, and unstoppable.

“We’re Nephilim, and we always have been,” Vergil adds, glancing away from the trembling feathers arching up-up behind Rea’s back.

“Good to know,” Rea croaks, eyes still wide, tail still spread, and fear still there.

* * *

Little Billy Bernstein with his baseball bat, he cocked his arm back and give the other kids a whack. Little Billy Bernstein with his nasty little laugh, he made the kids bleed and made some barf.

Strange no name kid hanging around the playground, he watched Billy swing and the other kids fall down. Strange nameless kid met Billy on the slide, he dodged to the left then to the side.

Little Billy swung and Strange kid ducked but the bat still hit his jaw with a _crack!_ Then there was blood and then there were teeth, Strange kid spitting the pieces at his feet.

And when Billy opened his mouth to chuckle, the kid filled his mouth with two hard knuckles. A choke and a gasp and a grunt and whine, Little Billy went down and the strange no name kid was fine.

* * *

The streets are empty when they move with dawn. Kat hooked on Dante’s hip like a child, head lolling as she sleeps on dead to the world. This time Dante leaves her in the back, sprawled out on the seat, and sits up front with Vergil as they head away from the city.

The destruction gets less obvious the further they get from downtown; no blocks of rubble or holes in the road. Easier to navigate empty streets, and he does mean _empty_.

Vergil’s lived here for half a decade, since he was fourteen and Seraphina thought the change of scenery would be nice. He’s live alone here since he was seventeen and fucked off to college on mommy and daddy’s dime. He’s been a student in the heart of the city, stumbling home from high-end frat parties at midnight and dragging himself from the library at dawn. He’s been an anarchist slinking through back alleys and parkouring his ass across rooftops, and he has never, not once or ever, seen these streets as clear as they are now.

The morning rush is gone, non-existent. There aren’t any people flagging down cabs, no drivers slinging profanity at each other, or blaring horns and squealing tires. Limbo City is empty, and it prickles along his spine. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

“What do we do now?” Dante asks when the remaining skyscrapers are behind them, gapped teeth screaming to the sky, and the empty road stretches off into forever.

The sun is barely peaking over that new skyline, streaking the sky with pink and purple and the soft haze of morning. And Vergil is cold. Mornings are always cold, and he wants…to rest, properly. He wants to lay in a bed that’s big enough and wrap himself in soft blankets and _sleep_.

He wants Dante there with him, in the same bed, the same space, it doesn’t matter. He just wants Dante close, and he wants to feel as out of his mind elated as he did yesterday. When the battle was still hot in his blood and the win was buoying him up on gauzy wings.

“I have an apartment outside the city, three bedrooms, it’s under a pseudonym so it should be safe,” he says, taking an exit that’ll add a half hour to the drive. The prickle-tickle- _ache_ of wrongness only settles a little bit when he does.

Enough for his white-knuckle grip to loosen and his back to slouch out of its ramrod straightness. There’s still a tension headache pounding in the back of his skull, cupping his thoughts in its tender embrace and refusing to let them coalesce into something sensible.

Next to him Dante is…nonchalantly tense. He’s got one foot up on the seat, heel digging into the leather with an elbow perched on his bent knee. And he’s slumped against the door, temple resting on the window; he’s pretending to look out at quiet streets flitting past, the buildings, but Vergil can feel his brother’s eyes on him.

And, when he glances at the gearshift, he notices the tight curl of Dante’s fist half tucked under his thigh. Then, he hears the grind of teeth, gunshot loud in the uneasy quiet of the car, the second loudest thing after Kat’s ragged snoring. Another thing to worry about; Kat doesn’t usually snore.

But Dante first. His brother wants to ask more, ask about Vergil’s new plans because _this_ couldn’t be it, right? A ruined world overrun with demons wasn’t what they wanted, right?

“Fancy, got spare clothes there too?” Dante asks instead, turning from the window with a lopsided smirk. Devil may care indeed.

Dante took after Sparda, the powers, the hair, the demon rage boiling under a human skin. Vergil doesn’t remember their father very well, but he’s heard about him. Sparda was his first demonic research project, the first supernatural thing he went hunting down after he remembered. Because, between their parents, Sparda was the more relevant one.

Mundus’ blood brother, the one who’d lived and gotten them to a facsimile of safety. According to the few devils willing to talk about him, without the Hell gate, Sparda had been just as powerful as Mundus. Sparda was dark, he was dangerous, always willing to do whatever had to be done to win. Even if he wouldn’t see the dawn of his victory.

Vergil himself doesn’t remember his father as a Dark Knight, just as he doesn’t remember his mother as a Holy Soldier. They weren’t warriors on a battlefield in their own home, they were just two people so in love even a child could see it. Just two people trying to live a life of relative peace.

The Sparda Vergil doesn’t know was a serrated edge, painful in and out, Vergil thinks that Sparda might be the demon he’s seen in Dante. Sparda was this and Sparda was that, and so is Dante, except Dante is _more_ than this and better than _that_. Dante is hellfire with a molten burn, he is sulphur with a gunpowder kick; he’s devilishly handsome and angelically vulgar and Vergil wishes Dante would just _talk_ to him.

Ask him what he wants without the jokes and taunts and sarcasm. Dante can ask anything, and Vergil will answer. Truthfully even, because Dante is the one person he will not lie to. He wants to know what’s on Dante’s mind, why he’s so tense, why he’s still guarded and cagey and…and so _this_.

“Right, all your spare clothes were at the headquarters,” Vergil says instead of what’s on his mind— _gnawing and prickling down his spine_ — “there are stores near the apartment, we’ll find you some new things.”

Does it bother him that Dante won’t speak freely? Rankle that his brother was so close for years, in the same fucking city for five years, and Vergil didn’t know? Does it settle like a stone in his gut that Dante even has to ask about clothes, as if Vergil wouldn’t share?

Yes, yes, and oh yes.

“You can borrow anything you want in the meantime though,” he says, keeps it casual and light, “except my underwear, might be too big for you.”

And Dante snorts, then snickers, and Vergil grins. They’re okay, they’ll be okay, and in the meantime there’s always brotherly dick jokes.

“Fuck off, Vergil.”

* * *

—look yourself in the face, blood shot eyes and a broken nose. Lip’s split, torn, and that cheekbone’s cracked, feel it? Hmm, no, there’s worse shit to deal with first.

“What the _fuck_ are you?”

Voice’s shot, throat not healed yet. Don’t look…too late. Don’t gasp…oh, _well_. There go those ragged edges flapping—ugh that’s nasty, and you wanna hurl. Wanna cough up your stomach lining and spit blood, but what good’s that gonna do? Huh, _Tony_?

No good, and you’re still looking. Well, better get a good long look before it’s healed. Look at the; pink-white meat of your oesophagus, the way it bloats and spills past your skin, and then the place where slick bones peak out of the mess, they’re such a dull white. Look at the; blood gushing down your front, it’s full of clotted chunks and heartbeat-full muscle, it’s a quick-sick red. Wouldn’t you say _Tony_?

And the place, the cut, it’s not clean, would’ve been better if it was clean. Might’ve already healed. No such luck though, gotta deal with a crooked slit and tattered edges where the skin doesn’t _quite_ fit together. Every breath wheezing through it, flapping those jagged edges. **_Nasty_**.

What did it feel like, _Tony_? Sharp and dull, at the same time, glass tearing through the skin and muscle, ripping through it. Not the cleanest slice, not like…like something else. Felt like; a gut punch and a spine break and a snap-crack- ** _what_** in the back of your head.

Felt warm— _the blood spurting and bubbling_ —and dizzy— _stumbled two steps and got kicked in the ribs_ —and a little bit like dying but mostly like Hell. Burning and endless, stuck in a pit with no way out, but it wasn’t Hell because you’ve been there and now, you’re here and you’re alive and you’re bleeding all over the filthy sink. Disgusting.

But isn’t that what you are, **_Tony_**? A disgusting little cockroach that refuses to fucking die—

* * *

Once, when he was ten, Seraphina redecorated the house while he was at school, the living rooms, the sitting room, bed _and_ baths. She was on a kick, he thinks, wanted to make their townhouse match the ultra-chic, ultra-modern aesthetic all her friends were trying to outdo each other with. He thinks she flew in a designer and their team to get it done, she must have, because when he got home that day, the house was different.

The wall art was all gone, sculptures too, and the plants moved to the balcony, even the ones that wouldn’t survive there. Most of the furniture was changed out, including his bed, and they were set in different places. He remembers, distinctly, the big smile on Seraphina’s face when she led him through the house to see it all.

Big smile and sparkling eyes, so pleased at how good it all looked. She’d said it was all about minimalism, getting that perfect industrial look. Scraping the colour off the walls, painting them oppressive grey, stripping back anything that could be “ _too much_ ” and leaving skeletal frames of things behind. It was all about big windows and dark wood and hanging lights, and Vergil _hated_ it.

All that empty space just made the room cold. The dull grey walls simply exhausted him. And he hate-hate- _hated_ the way she just got rid of his things. His bed, his desk, the cabinet and sink in his bathroom; she’d just…thrown it out without even _asking_.

He’d wanted to scream, yell and fume and make a mess of all that sleek minimalism. Break the big windows and throw his new metal desk against the wall until the choking grey cracked and crumbled. He’d wanted to make her mad, _scared_ even.

But he was only ten, only adopted, and he was the good son she was _so_ nice to. He’d thanked her, said it was pretty and he loved it, “ _thanks Mom_ ”. He’d wrapped his arms around her waist instead of her neck and hugged her with a nice big smile. Big smile and sparkling eyes.

Living with Dante, and Kat, is a little bit like that. The confusion when something’s out of place, the urge to snarl when something he wants _isn’t_ there. Open the wine cooler and where’s his fucking wine? Search the closet, search the bedroom, and why’s his coat in the living room? Fall asleep at his desk, slumped in his chair, and why does he wake up in his bed with Dante telling him to go back to sleep?

It’s _disorienting_ , and confusing, and Vergil knows he should hate it as much as he hated Seraphina’s makeovers, but he doesn’t. No matter how much he tries, the worst he gets is annoyed. Pinch his nose, count to ten with his eyes squeezed shut _annoyed_ but that’s the worst of it.

Tonight he should be— _furious, homicidal, contemplating **fratricide**_ —incensed but somehow he’s not. When Dante stumbles into the apartment sometime after midnight with a black eye and blood dried into his clothes, Vergil looks up from his laptop and waits.

For Dante to limp his way into the living room and collapse on the couch next to him. For Dante to grumble and bat those bloodshot eyes until Vergil pulls out one of their many bottles of Vicodin. Then steal his wine to knock back the pills and sprawl against him, warm and solid and very much there.

“Club’s got new management, some Vepar fuck replaced Lilith,” Dante mutters, head tipped back to scowl at the ceiling. There’s a fine misting of gore speckled across his brother’s cheek, highlighting the harsh chop of his jaw and the displeased set of it. Is any of it Dante’s? Maybe. His brother’s far from an elegant fighter but…

Vergil thinks about reaching up and wiping away the blood with the very tips of his fingers, or maybe smearing it with his palm. Just to see what Dante would do. Would Dante push him away? Snarl and jump back to his feet? His shoulders would come up probably, tension snapping them around his ears, and he would hunch down into himself, a smaller target.

He’s done that a couple times, when Kat stepped in too close too quick, when enemies got in under his guard. That’s when the flashfire-flashbang panic lights up his pale face, catching the fear, sharp anger throwing sharper shadows. When the scared, half-feral child Dante must’ve been— _that the demons made him_ —shines through and twists the knife in Vergil’s chest just a bit more viciously.

Vergil hates it, hates the implications and outright explanations, so he keeps his hands to himself.

“Did some Vepar fuck do this to you?” he asks conversationally, turning his attention back to his laptop. He has approximately ten more reports to read and a growing pain between his shoulder blades to deal with before he can call it a night.

The Order, the _real_ Order, has rallied beautifully. All the sleeper agents have activated in all the countries across the world and are feeding him first-hand information on the demon infestation. Information those individual governments would skin him living over, because they’re not doing very well.

They’ve listened to the supernatural helpers, the witches leading the charge and the half-demons giving antsy support and have elected to ignore all that good advice. The humans in charge refuse to accept help from the occult because these are demons, right? Well, they know how to deal with _those_ , they have entire religious sects dedicated to it.

Vergil wonders how long until the humans realise these demons don’t play nicely with their idea of God. Infernal fiends won’t cower away from crosses or holy water, they’re older than both. And they sure as shit won’t cower from the human butchered Latin dribbling down these priests’ wobbling chins.

The creatures spilling into the world are from the hellish deeps and depths, places humanity can barely fathom. There are rites that _could_ banish them back, but no human’s ever heard them.

According to the reports he’s already read, and probably the ones he hasn’t gotten to, the humans are holding out but not for long. A week’s long enough for them to think they have a handle on the situation, for things to…not become normal, that would take longer than a few days, but for things to be not as gut-wrenchingly raw. Long enough for militaries to be deployed and holy men to be contacted; countermeasures haven’t been finalised yet but soon.

As of a week, the cities are clearing out. Limbo City is half desolate. The people who could get out already went, after Mundus’ first Hell gate fuelled temper tantrum. The ones left behind are hiding in basements and hastily barricaded apartments; people are ransacking stores and doing their best to avoid the demons still haunting half a ghost town.

None of these reports are about Limbo City, there’re only two Order members left here after all. Three if he includes Dante, though he wonders if his brother would include himself. Hmm, maybe Dante will sit with him while he slogs through the rest of these. They can make fun of the humans together, and of the few demons that have managed to be killed by them.

“I like the place, it was good for a good time,” Dante says after a while, Vergil’s not sure how much of one but enough for him to get through a few more pages. Should that annoy him? He thinks yes.

He’s a busy man, very busy, his time is valuable and shouldn’t be wasted waiting for non-answers. He can hear himself saying the words, the lecturing tone, and it sounds too much like Dominic for his liking. His adoptive father liked to complain about people wasting his time, it was one of his favourite topics.

Dante might sit quietly and listen to Vergil lecture him, like _Christopher_ used to sit for Dominic. His cracked lips might tug up into one of his signature devil may care smirks, and he’d wait for Vergil to talk himself quiet. Then he might roll his eyes, flip Vergil the bird, and wander off looking for food.

Maybe he’s right, maybe they’ve fallen back in sync enough for Vergil to predict what his brother might and might not do, and maybe he’s completely wrong. He’s not sure and he doesn’t particularly _want_ to be sure. He’s…not sure what he does want.

“I think Vepar was a Viscount, or a Baron maybe? Didn’t think she’d take over for Lilith,” Vergil says, scanning another report. More of the same.

Next to him, Dante opens his mouth, Vergil can hear the subtle crack of his jaw and the wet part of lips. Dante takes a breath, a soft little thing, then he stalls. There’s something he wants to say, maybe about the club, maybe about what Vergil’s been doing this past week. What _they’ve_ been doing. 

Collecting themselves? Recovering from a fight that’s still static in Vergil’s ears and a burn under Dante’s skin? Waiting for Kat to be healthy enough to travel? What’s the plan here?

Dante is good at _doing_ things. Any idiot can see that. He has a hard time sitting still, staying in one place and waiting for circumstances to improve and slot into place. Dante would criticise the ocean for the slowness of the tide and that’s unbearably endearing, but useless right now.

The quiet breath gets breathed, sighed, and no words come with it. Dante closes his mouth and shoves himself deeper into the couch, burrowing down into the cushions. The shush of fabric on fabric, the creak of leather, it’s a touch too loud to be white noise but still soothing. These are Dante’s noises, his settling, and Vergil is already used to it again.

They don’t sleep in the same bed again, Vergil barely sleeps and Dante rests during the day, but these noises are familiar. Heard through the wall bordering their rooms, head to head. Vergil’s used to the sound of his brother again, calmed. It’s a nice thought.

“She’s nothing, I’ll kill her for you if you want,” he offers, between one paragraph of gore and the next. His human operatives are almost unhealthily obsessed with demonic violence; stunned and shocked and half-terrified by it, but so-so interested too.

Dante’s settling noises stop, freeze abruptly enough that the whining static fills up Vergil’s ears from the lack of stimulation. He frowns at his screen, shakes his head out and looks at—

“You’d do that for me?” Dante’s voice is low and rough and something like panic crouches in his throat, Vergil’s. He’s never heard Dante panicked, not even when Mundus was ripping into his chest.

But Vergil knows panic, it’s familiar silver on his tongue when he licks his lips nervously. When Dante looks at him with hard eyes and a strange emotion twisting his face. What’s wrong? Did he say something wrong? Was that not—should he not have?

“Kill Vepar?” he asks, for the clarification, to make sure that’s what Dante means. There can’t possibly be anything else but the quicksilver on his breath says there might be. He might’ve missed something important, not heard it, and _that’s_ what Dante could mean.

But no—but Dante’s nodding, hair flopping into his eyes, and it takes away some of the edge. He’s not a demon hunter with a score to settle with God right now, he’s just Vergil’s brother who’s maybe more vulnerable than either of them have been in a long time. Vergil’d like to think Dante’d only be this vulnerable around him because he’s the only one who could protect it.

There’s nothing weak about Dante’s vulnerability but there’s an inherent softness to it that needs safeguarding. Vergil thinks he’s the only one who could do that with any measure of success, no one else would ever be strong enough.

“Of course Dante, you’ve done so much for me, this would be the least I could do for you,” he says, and means it, panic laced between the words. Panic makes him speak, unhooks the words from his throat and shoves them past his lips, but panic doesn’t make him lie. He means all of that, probably more than he’s possibly meant anything else.

Dante destroyed the Succubus and Barbos, he fought his way into the Order headquarters during the storm and managed to kidnap Mundus’ spawn. He did so much, more than Vergil thought he could ask; Dante did that. Now they’ve accomplished everything they never dared dream about, and Vergil thinks his brother’s done enough.

If Dante wants to go out and pick fights, which he’s been doing every night this week, then alright. Vergil will be here waiting with the human pain medication that takes the edge off. If Dante wants to keep visiting Devil’s Dalliance despite how off-kilter the world is now, then okay. Vergil will kill the entire managerial staff if it means Dante can visit as much as he wants without getting his pretty face beat in.

“I could buy you the club, if you wanted, just say the word and it’s yours,” and, because it sounds like such a good plan, Vergil closes his reports and pulls up the business listing. Officially, it’s a private business, but he’s lived in the upper-class long enough to know everything has a price.

And there’s no price he won’t pay to make Dante happy. Though, Dante looks somewhere between confused and well, Vergil’s not quite sure what the other one is. The softness is still there, along with a half-cleared black eye, but that’s probably amusement dancing in his brother’s eyes. Makes them look lighter, a midday sky instead of a midnight special.

“Hold on rich boy, what would I even do with it? Be a responsible business owner?” and the amusement’s leaking through into his voice now, into the air now. The panic settles and Vergil feels his lips twitching into the same kind of smile splitting Dante’s face.

“Nah, that’s _not_ for me, but I wouldn’t mind a new bike if you’re in the mood to buy me something,” Dante jokes, Vergil knows it’s a joke and he grins. He doesn’t know the first thing about bikes but he’s sure he can find whatever he needs online. In between leading his Order and hunting down Mundus’ business associates of course.

“How about I enrol you in a self-defence course first? I’m sure they can teach you how to stop being hit in the face,” he teases, and Dante laughs, and they both settle back down. Dante with his usual noises, Vergil with his usual calm.

They don’t say anything else for the rest of the time Vergil spends reading reports with Dante by his side, they don’t really have to. If he remembers right, they never had to.

* * *

Snort awake, shake my head. Where am I?

There’s…this is a bed, rumpled covers, sheet twisting around my legs. Anyone in with me? No, nope, bed’s warm though and the pillows are soaked with whoever’s scent. Fancy-schmany cologne and vodka, top shelf shit.

Aight, take a look around, where is this? Bedroom, a dark bedroom, must still be night then, but nah, not a bedroom I recognise. The walls are pastel green and there’s a desk crammed in the corner with a laptop blinking on top. _That_ looks expensive, thin and sleek like the ones those executive rats use.

Keep looking, what else is here? Bookcase in the corner, full of big, thick volumes with names I can’t read, and there’s even a dresser. Shit, who’d I go home with?

Ugh think idiot. Not one of the usuals, they don’t got shit this nice, not an exec though, not high enough. Building’s still swaying from how high but not top floor, hmm. What’s this look like? A room that’s just a bedroom but good quality shit and good taste, how _elegant_.

Take a second, breathe, it’s fine. Where’s my clothes? Uh, well there’s my jacket on the floor, and my jeans, and whoever’s nice dress shirt. Huh, blue, don’t usually see blue in Devils so what— _college kid!_ Right, right. Blond hair, sharp jaw, pretty boy looking for a dirty fuck. Guys like that usually go for the girlies, a nice piece of ass to make mommy mad, but this one decided to cosy up with the bad boy. Trying to make daddy mad?

Thinking about all that vodka, yeah he was trying to make daddy mad. Matched my ass shot for shot, heh, pretty boy sure could hold his liquor.

So yeah, hot college guy. Didn’t get a name before he was dragging me out of Devil’s by the dick but that’s fine. Names just slow shit down and college boy was looking for something quick and dirty, which is just my speed. Good fuck for a priss, big dick too. Wonder if he’s up for a midnight round three?

Hmm, but where’d he go?

Listen, there’s the toilet flushing, he just went for a piss stupid, no reason to jump awake like someone’s got a gun to your head. Well, not this time at least. This is just a good, old fashioned rich boy trying to get as a wild as the movies have told him he should. Chasing that high, exorcising those demons— _ha!_

Maybe he told me that, snarled between the humping, or maybe the type’s too easy to read, I’m not sure. The details are a little fuzzy, but the hickies peppering my thighs ain’t.

Whew, college boy sure wanted to leave an impression. Those bitches are _still_ red, but eh it’s kinda cute, so I won’t heal them just yet. Can’t anyway, he might figure out something’s up if I do and, check the clock tucked in the corner of the desk, it’s just past four. Play my cards right and I could get a place to crash until mid-morning.

So, lay back down, just lie down, good boy. Breathe in that college boy spunk, always musky and sharp, and close those eyes. Right, just relax. It’s safe, you’re safe.

And here he is again. Footsteps a little too quiet but he must not want to wake me, cute. There’s a hand, threading through my hair, smells like fancy soap and hard water, nice. Might get a chance to shower in the morning then.

Some creaking, some huffing, and there’s college boy snuggled up against my back again. Definitely getting a shower out of this.

* * *

Dante never asked but Vergil never learned to leave things well enough alone, so he does go looking into Devil’s Dalliance; the ownership and managerial staff of, and human involvement with.

According to what he’s found, and what’s been decrypted since the wards broke, the club’s existed longer than the country has. As inns and way points, a place to rest weary travellers, there was a stint where it was a speakeasy _and_ a gentlemen’s club. Yamato’s been there, she has the vaguest recollections of it, and directs his search to the noble demon line that held it before Mundus’ gave it to Lilith.

Even then it’s hard to track. Ownership’s changed hands as many times as the place changed faces, mostly under demonic control, mostly held by the same noble family but what a family. Pumpkin vine relations spread across three circles of hell and their subordinate legions, Vergil slogs through record after record going back as far as the early third century before he loses the thread.

And, after all that, it still takes some more digging and a fuckload of threatening to find out _why_ that wretched plot of land is so important.

“Ley lines, Dalliance is built on intersecting ley lines. Demons have been using it as a secondary hell gate for centuries!” Vergil shouts as he stumbles through a portal.

Yamato bangs against one hip with a displeased grumble and his messenger bag slaps against the other, papers threatening to spill. His hair flops into his eyes and Lord, he must look awful, but no, none of that’s important right now! He has it! He found it! And he can show Dante now too.

One sweep of his arm and Vergil’s sent boxes of cereal and a centrepiece flying off the island counter. The salt and pepper shakers break musically, and they are a distant concern. Dante barely manages to save his bowl, which Vergil will apologise for later, but right now he’s too caught up in his epiphany.

He’s been following this lead for the last two days, from Limbo to Louisiana then Massachusetts, down to the circle of Gluttony and up to Colorado, to Pennsylvania, back again to the circle of Lust. And there are probably a dozen more jumps he’s forgetting, places he’s been to, but the places aren’t important, the demons are. Ones who hated Mundus, some who were indifferent, a few who tried to take his head off, but all of them weak and easily threatenable.

Now he’s back home with a messenger bag overflowing with maps and scripts and flyaway pages full of knowledge. So much knowledge, and he can barely keep it all together in his head. That’s why he has to share it with Dante!

His brother will help him piece it all together. His brother will understand this and care and know why this is important!

“Not _just_ demons though! According to the oldest sources angels could cross into our world through Dalliance too, and the two sides have been fighting over it practically forever,” he explains, pointing at the X-marks-the-spots drawn in gold. There are lines all over the map, wiggling and wavering, in glitter pen silver and bronze with gold Xs everywhere they touch.

Then he slaps down another map, one that’s not of earth, and arranges it over the first one. The only map of Limbo he was able to find ~~threaten out of Rea~~ and the lines there are drawn in glitter pen red and blue but golden X’s still mark the spots. Less spots in Limbo of course, the geography isn’t as stable, and the supernatural highways aren’t as necessary there, but they still exist.

And, according to the decrypted files, Mundus has been guarding each intersection nearly as heavy as he guarded his main Hell gate. Demons couldn’t just cross over into the human world whenever they wanted, they _had_ to check in with Mundus first. _Angels_ couldn’t cross over at all, they’d get killed the second they showed a single feather, or they’d be taken captive.

That _had_ to be the reason angels were so scarce in the human world though devils were running rampant. And it had to be the reason no other Nephilim existed, or even half-human hybrids; Mundus had effectively cut them out of the loop.

“Sparda used to guard it, Mundus didn’t trust anyone else back then, and _this_ must’ve been how he met Eva!”

Does he sound manic? Maybe yes? Vergil’s not sure, he’s just…just so excited! He’s found it! He’s found the place their parents met, he’s solved a bit of the mystery of Eva and Sparda! But not just them though, he’s solved the angelic mystery too! The first one in so long to figure it out, to understand where the Heavenly host went.

It’s the—the find of the decade! And there’s a fizz in his blood, a rush in his head, this is incredible! _He’s_ incredible! And Dante is…Dante’s staring at him.

Staring at him like the Order council did when he figured out the secret behind Virility. Not scared but wary, not concerned but hesitant. Staring at him like his field agents did when he found out Mundus’ secret weakness. Not ecstatic or bursting at the seams with anticipation, it’s drier, not as—ahem.

He…right of course, he needs to ah calm down this is…right.

“I…angels might start crossing back now that gates aren’t so heavily guard,” he finishes weakly, dragging a hand through his unkempt hair. He hmm.

He hasn’t slept, has he? No, he doesn’t think so. He was so busy bouncing between informants and hunting down the books he needed that he forgot about everything else. And suddenly…suddenly he collapses into the chair he didn’t even notice until then.

His legs refuse and his muscles cut, and he drops with a clatter. Some of his maps fall out, some of the scripts too, but Vergil’s too tired to reach down and get them. All of his energy fizzles out with a weak electric pop and the world comes back into focus. Dante’s stare and the mess he made coming in, and oh wonderful, Kat’s been here the whole time. She’s watching him from the living room, concerned and worried and is that resignation?

Vergil’s not quite sure, he’s seen it on her before of course, but he never could remember to ask. Then she glances at Dante, and Dante returns the look, and something liquid hot and liquid cold flash freezes in his throat. They’re sharing looks now? They understand each other so well?

“Vergil, when was the last time you ate?” Kat asks so meek, like she’s scared…is she scared of him? Vergil?

Why would she—what reason does she have to be scared of him? He’s never hurt her! And he may not have been ready to—to throw away the world for her but he’s _never_ hurt her. He _would_ never—he’s not like her glorified parasite of a foster father. And he…he have taken or rather he may have changed key memories of her—that she had of their relationship but…

There’s no reason for Kat to be scared, least of all scared of _him_. There are parts of their relationship she might not remember, events that played out differently for her than they did in reality, but that stands aside from all he’s done for her. He killed her foster father and gave her the memory of doing it herself.

He gave her power, _taught_ her power. All of her witchery and wiccanism, she wouldn’t have learnt any of it without him. If he’d wanted her to be scared, he would never have given her any of that, so why?

Vergil wants to ask it, that question. _Why?_ Hurl that one word at her head and drag the answers out of her big, wide eyes. Why does she sound so scared? And why does she spend all of her time with Dante now? What are her intentions towards his brother? Does she plan on seducing him like she did Vergil?

He _won’t_ let that happen. She already got her hooks in _his_ soft heart once, like hell’s Vergil going to let her rake them through Dante’s affection. His brother’s trusting, he believes so hard in the things he cares about. He saved her from Mundus because he believed in her, and he’d let her cut him to bloody chunks if he believed she was doing it out of love.

Well too bad because Vergil’s here and—

“Vergil, you need some sleep,” Dante’s saying, quiet and calm, cutting straight through maelstrom thoughts, “good job finding the ley lines but you’re gonna burn out. Get some rest and we can talk some more about this after.”

Which, yes, right, Dante’s right. They’re Nephilim but even they have their limits. Using Yamato to jump around the country took more out of him than he anticipated, and of course the shows of power to convince the demons to part with their knowledge. He should’ve taken a break before this, why didn’t he?

His eyes fall on the maps, and right, this is why. Almost two full weeks since Mundus’ defeat and the world has stagnated. No, no the world is holding its breath, waiting for the next earthquaking move.

Dante and Vergil moved the game into check, they beheaded a King, but they’re far from a checkmate. Either they move or they are moved against and Vergil will not allow that, he refuses to—

“Verge.”

And his eyes snap up to…his eyes—no Dante’s eyes. They have the same eyes. Blue, blue, blue, but Vergil’s are burning with exhaustion and Dante’s are concerned, caring. He’s too a good a person.

“Yes, bed, I…” the words stick in his throat, get caught on his pride until he can barely breathe around it. He wants to sleep, now that Dante’s brought him up short and forced him to see what he’s been going without. He needs to sleep, his body’s crying out for it, but he can’t—that is to say he—not at the table but—

“C’mon Mr Research,” Dante sighs, but it’s playful, deflecting whatever else he’s feeling with humour. He does that a lot, Vergil’s noticed, he should ask about it. Later, he’ll ask later because right now Dante’s grabbing him by the waist.

Throwing him, gently, over one bony shoulder and toting him off to bed. Vergil huffs, then he laughs, and Dante’s laughing too, shaking under Vergil. They’re both wheezing with it by the time Dante dumps him in bed.

* * *

New kid, new kid, always the new kid, but new blood this time, right _Leon_? Yeah, that’s all, new blood, gotta prove he’s worth the time and effort.

“You waitin’ for an invitation, new kid?” one of the old bloods heckles and jeckles.

And is he? Hmm no, just waiting to see if his blood eats through the glass. He remembers it doing something like that once, burning his foster father where it landed on his skin. And he remembers decapitating the fuck with a bent out of shape knife right after too.

This glass is fine though so maybe it only works on demons, good to know, he’ll use that sometime.

“Bottoms up,” he sing-songs, winking at the old blood over his own blood.

The glass is warm against his lips, splashed and splattered when he slashed open his wrist, the blood is too. His and a pig’s and another newbie’s, and it doesn’t taste half bad. It’s copper and rust and a blood infection waiting to happen, but he’s stomached worse. So this is…thick in the back of his throat, slick over his teeth.

 _Leon_ drinks until he drinks all of that new blood up and smacks his lips when he’s done. Slams the glass back on the table like a shot and sneers as filthy as he’s learned. And, when a drop of the red stuff goes snaking down his chin, he catches it on his fingertips and sucks it right back off. Clumsy him.

“Well shit new kid, maybe you’ve got what we want after all,” old blood snickers and chitters, and Leon grins. Devil may care and devil may fuck right off.

Across from him the other newbie’s sweating. Fingers slipping around his own glass, fine motor controls a little pain-shot. Couldn’t say why. Not like the razor’s sat lazy and bloody between them. And, between them, _Leon_ thinks he’s getting the better end of the deal but shh, it’s just between them.

“Now what about you?” another blood asks, kicking the newbie’s chair and ooh nearly dropped the glass there, huh?

It’s down to this and them, from a group of ten ratty little shits to two cocky bastards. The other guy, newbie, is pale under his tan, just another white boy looking for a quick buck and some quick cred. Gangs are all the rage in Limbo these days, some are even easy to join, but not this one, not for this guy.

He cut too deep on the first pass, for a start, and he’s hesitating too long on the first sip, for an end. But, _Leon’s_ the encouraging sort, believes in fair play, and pins the bitch with a stare. A silent, pungent dare; Showed you mine now show me yours.

“C’mon kid, we got shit to do.”

Those lips tremble and that hand shake, but the glass’s lifting and _Leon_ keeps staring. Showed you mine now show me yours.

The blood washes newbie’s lips and he gets half a mouthful down his gullet before the screaming-steaming- _shrieking_ starts. The glass goes tumbling one way and newbie goes flailing the other, screeching as something a little more potent than blood burns through his oesophagus.

The last, very last and totally last, initiation ritual the old bloods put him through, _Leon_ him of course, is getting rid of the other newbie’s body. He cuts it to pieces with a rusty bone saw they provide and chums the Hudson with the corpse.

* * *

Dalliance is Different. Vergil feels it as he crosses the threshold arm in arm with Dante.

It’s Different, capital D from the few times he’d been there during his college years and the handful he’d snuck in to gather intel after. The pumping synth is the same, still catching on his vertebrae and beating against his ribs. The light shows are the same retina searing, neon disasters with too much red and laced smoke. Even the drinks burn the same, linger on his tongue the same, and make his teeth ache with how much sugar’s dissolved into them.

The aesthetics are the same, but Dalliance is still Different. The prickle of eyes on the back of his neck is gone and the unsettled something in his gut is quiet. There’s a faux peace, a…hmm, perhaps the best way to describe it would be to say the hypervigilance isn’t necessary anymore. Something in the smoke, something in the _air_ , makes him feel more relaxed than he should be and Vergil forces himself to be twice as aware to make up for it.

He keeps his eyes moving, flitting over the dancers, taking in the spotters, and the guards, and anything in between. He keeps his ears open, listening harder, for the subsonic chanting the synth covers up, for the crackle of hellfire or divine chimes. He keeps himself alert in case he doesn’t need to be.

“VIP’s behind the glass over my shoulder,” Dante murmurs, winking at a dancer over _Vergil’s_ shoulder and subtly shifting to give him a better look. At the VIP section of course, not the girl, Vergil doesn’t care about these winged dancer “ _girls_ ”.

He cares about the sleek black glass above the DJ pit, the two-way mirrors reinforced with security film and demonic runes. Vepar’s behind it, like Dante said she would be, watching them but not sure if they _are_ them. The rumours running around Limbo say Sparda’s sons are white haired and blue eyed, both of them, except no, they’re brunets with red eyes. Wait but hang on, isn’t it red _hair_?

The demons remember Sparda, wicked and dark and charming; he was a handsome devil. The devils remember Eva, divine whore, a slash of blood in the night; she was obscenely gorgeous. So, their sons, their wretched little bastards, should take after them, right? Maybe, maybe, no one’s quite sure of anything except that Sparda’s spawn offed Mundus, his generals, his bitch, and his unborn progeny. Everything else is fair game. 

Dante and Vergil, Vergil and Dante, the demonic grapevine is being eaten alive with rumours, hearsay and speculation about Vergil-Dante-Dante-Vergil. Are they really Nephilim? Do they carry the legendary devil swords turned angel arms won back to demon weapon? Are they twins or just brothers? What do they _want_? And **_where_** are they?

“She’s alone, just like you said,” Vergil breathes, fighting back a smile. Dante’s intel’s always good, and tonight it’s crystal perfect.

Vepar’s up there, looking down at the club packed to bursting with humans and demons, and her sickly white eyes are desperate. She got a tip off from someone ~~Rea~~ that the sons of Sparda were coming tonight, what for? Her informant didn’t know but he had it on good authority ~~Vergil~~ that they _would_ be here.

But, it’s almost closing time, barely an hour off from it, and Vepar can’t find them. Doesn’t see them in the thronging-frotting crowd, hasn’t heard word from her bouncers or security. Not even the bartender’s seen anything. Where _are_ they?

“Cocky bitch,” Dante snorts, leaning into Vergil’s space until his alcohol slick lips are brushing his ear, “move in ten. Employee staircase behind the catwalk. I’ll take the heat.”

Then Dante’s backing off, laughing a little too loud and calling the bartender over for another round of shots. Vergil sees the move for what it is and leaves a twenty under his own glass before he slips off into the crowd. People tend to remember the big tippers and the ones who don’t tip at all; if they’re to do this as stealthily as they planned, Vergil can’t be remembered.

Dante orders something with enough alcohol to knock a human cold while Vergil avoids spotters sprinkled across the dancefloor, turning and dipping and slipping through the dancers. He doesn’t dance, doesn’t like the faux intimacy of it, but he does know _how_ to do it, and uses it to move. Twists his body, sways his hips and lets a few people drag him in tight when the spotters wander too close.

Hands on his hips, hands on his shoulders, they reel him in with filthy smirks and flirty smiles and Vergil lets them. He moves with the beat and follows their lead, and when they outlive their usefulness, he breaks their hold and keeps moving. He’s across the room in seven minutes like that, half an ear listening to Dante’s drunken fervour ratchet up.

He’s the distraction, much as Vergil doesn’t like it. They’re past the days where Vergil needed his brother to play field agent of chaos, but Dante insisted, was adamant. If they did this, took Devil’s Dalliance back from devil control, then they would do it like _this_. Vergil moving in for the quick-slick kill, Dante staying out to cover security.

“What the fuck’re you lookin’ at?” Dante growls, loud and impossible to miss. Every spotter head snaps in his direction, every security walkie-talkie crackles to life, and up above it all, Vepar moves closer to the glass. No one spares a look at Vergil sidling closer-closer to the dancer catwalk, not even the pretty things twining around the poles.

Every eye falls on daring, dangerous Dante, and Vergil almost forgets what he’s meant to do. Then a guard ~~demon~~ drops a heavy hand on his brother’s shoulder and Dante lashes out, whip quick, and lays the man out with a stinging uppercut. Vergil hears the grunt of a pain all the way across the room and hisses a vicious breath through his teeth.

His brother’s all coiled strength and barely leashed violence, he’s a wonder to behold, but Vergil has a job to do. A threat to make good on. So, when Dante sneers down at the guard, Vergil takes the chance to duck behind the catwalk while every eye’s on him.

“Don’t’chu fuckin touch me,” Dante slurs, and Vergil ducks through the employee entrance when one of the girls comes trotting out. She never sees him pressed against the wall and doesn’t even think to look behind her, sloppy.

Vergil takes the opportunity and slips through the door— _and the world_ —into the piece of Hell that’s seeped into every crack and crevice of Dalliance. The liminal space is morphic, it moulds itself to fit whatever master it has, and this brand of unreality is unsettlingly soothing. Unsettles his angel’s blood, soothes his devil’s bones.

Reality is neon sharp here, and the air is wet, and Vergil can’t decide whether he’s drowning or getting his first good breath in years.

In the world behind him, where Dante is, the door lead to a staircase then up-up-up to Vepar’s supposed-to-be-safe cove. In the pocket dimension he’s found himself, the staircase stretches out into something watery, dispersed lights falling through a liquid hellscape, an underwater vent instead of Lilith’s technicolour torture chamber. Vergil supposes that makes sense, Duchess Vepar _would_ feel at home at the bottom of the sea.

Vergil knows he could spend years researching and theorising about the metaphysics of morphism and pocket dimensions, but there are more important things to do right now. And, with Yamato resting easy in the curl of his hand, he heads out to do those things.

The staircase takes the shape of a tunnel for him, like in an aquarium, a carved-out tunnel of air beneath the crushing force of the water. Through the “ _glass_ ” he can see creatures that don’t exist for humans anymore. A colossal shark swimming fathoms above his head throws a bulky shadow over him, and Vergil watches the megalodon pass with something like awe.

He carries it with him for five minutes before it’s swiftly replaced with annoyance as he crawls under gently glowing tentacles, slicing off the ones that drift too close. The creature they’re attached too, an impossibly large jellyfish of some kind, doesn’t attack, or move, it just bobs in the water. And he would have no issue with that except for how obscenely long it takes to pick his way through the forest of tentacles.

Yamato suggests teleporting but they don’t know what’s on the other side of the tentacles and he’d rather not step outside the tunnel. He isn’t particularly keen on experiencing the pressures of the deep either, no doubt he _could_ , but this is the most direct route to Vepar. Struggling through tentacles is easier in that sense, at least he knows where their path leads.

…to a giant eye. Well, he was _expecting_ more tunnel to follow but when the last tentacle dances away, there’s an eye staring at him, planted right in the middle of his path. Vergil watches it watch him. The pupil, nearly as long as he is tall, constricts as the leviathan of myth and legend focuses on him, and Vergil cocks a brow at it. Is it going to _move_?

No, apparently not. It does not move, or attack, though it does curl tentacles thicker than his waist, it only watches him.

Vergil lets it for another five minutes, not very confident it will do anything, and when it doesn’t, he draws his sword. Perhaps he’ll get a good fight out of this creature from the depths of folklore.

He doesn’t. One stab to its oversized eye and the leviathan of myth and legend goes screaming away, voice a mixture of sound and force as it thrashes through the tunnel. Vergil backs nearly into the jellyfish to avoid the splash of lilac blood, and sneers at the wretched noise the creature makes. Pathetic.

The Kraken, because it is a Kraken, doesn’t make a move to retaliate. It just swims away, dragging its oversized bulk through the water, and it never stops screeching as it does. Though, the sound turns into a vibration when it leaves the tunnel and fades into the distance. Vergil listens to it to the edge of hearing, well beyond the human threshold, and he supposes the Kraken’s pitiful shriek will have to stand in for a demonic choir.

After the leviathan though, there’s nothing of note. A few interestingly coloured fish catch his eye, swimming both higher and lower than his tunnel, and never paying him any attention. Which is fine, he’d rather not waste his time with them.

On and on and much farther than Vergil thought possible for a pocket dimension, and he wonders if he’s meant to walk the length of the ocean floor. Cross the rivers of lava he can see bubbling down-down in the lower depths, dance under the bioluminescence that dazzles by with every strange creature. He wonders if time is slower here, or faster, and if Dante’s alright out there—no of course he is. Dante is a fighter, the best fighter, he’s _fine_.

Vergil doesn’t stop worrying though. About how many more demons could be crawling through this thin place right now, a natural gate. They don’t need to find a rip or tear to get here, they can step through as easy as they please and swarm Dante. And just like that he’s sprinting, pelting through the tunnel faster-faster.

Another creature, a fish thing swims too close, and he strikes out as he darts past, soaks the water with its blood. He’s long past it when the predators swarm, squabbling and snapping behind his back, and he forces himself faster. Quicker, more. Dante’s _counting_ on him. Dante’s out there fighting for him. Dante’s—

_Crack!_

His nose crunching against the door.

Dante’s going to _laugh_ at him.

_Wham!_

His whole weight slamming the thing off its hinges.

Dante might like this place.

_“Who the fuck!”_

Vepar screeching in a voice like icepicks straight into his brain.

Vergil deflects the first bullet reflexively, the second and third are intentional, their perfect halves sinking into the wall behind him.

There’s blood gushing from his broken nose, dribbling down his chin, and a pant aching to break past his lips, but he keeps his mouth shut and stares down the demon bitch that dared attack his brother. Because he does mean down. She’s sat in a chair like a throne, something gilded in coral and bullet casings, holding a gun braced against her shoulder and staring right back.

And, even with the description Andrealphus provided, she’s not what Vergil was expecting.

He heard siren and mistakenly assumed beauty. Rea said mermaid and Vergil thought of the human idea of mermaid, fish woman, princess under the waves, but Duchess Vepar is nothing like that. She’s a shrivelled thing, wrinkled and hunched over in her chair, well at least she has the scales. Toxic green scales that glitter like ground glass as they fall, like dandruff, and show sickly pale skin beneath.

“You! But you—you’re down in the—the other one?!” Vepar shrieks saltwater spittle flying from her lips, cold-metal bullets flying from her gun.

Vergil cuts them with short flicks of his wrist as he advances on this pitiful excuse for a fishwife. If this is the best the demon world can offer, the best its nobility has, then there’s a dire call for fresh blood. If only to improve the general look of it all.

Humans were right, once upon a time. Succubi were beautiful and salacious, sirens were gorgeous and seductive, nymphs were lustful and nightmares were shameless. The myth and folklore had to come from _somewhere_ , and somewhere was usually the creatures themselves; haunting dreams and stealing souls, impossible to resist. The humans were right about them, _were_ right, but not anymore because they’ve all degraded. Grown small and nasty.

Like Vepar.

She’s cowering now, scales sloughing off in waves, putrid underbelly jiggling as she trembles. In fear or rage, Vergil doesn’t care. Every pull of a trigger, every kick of recoil, it’s taking more and more out of her. She’s panting from the effort of controlling the club and keeping her legions subservient. Her spine’s breaking under the weight of the minor hell gate.

She’s dying right before his eyes.

“Yes, the other one,” he says when his relentless stalk puts him in front of her. Leaves him looking down his nose at her.

This close he can see through the latticework of cataracts creeping across her once bright eyes, can count every individual scar on her pockmarked face. The scales take chunks of skin with them as they go now, leaving behind sores wet with pus and blood. Some of them regrow, slot into place as soon as there’s space, but more don’t.

“You’re just a rotted ocean thing clinging to power, aren’t you?”

And fear, real fear, flashes across her milky eyes. As he looms over her like Dante wouldn’t have, like Sparda _would_?

“You’re already dead but you refuse to let go. This was your last chance,” Vergil murmurs, more to himself, wondering aloud. The city’s a ruin, still trying to wrap its head around the existence of religious fairy-tale monsters, but the club’s still going. Humans are still crawling to it, in ones and twos and droves, flocking to the placebo safety of Dalliance.

Some demons feed on blood, need it to stay healthy and hale, others fed on violence, glutted themselves in it. Vepar though, she thrives on carnal pleasures, lust and sex and arousal, she drinks it down till she chokes; like every other once-seductive thing. Vergil understands now, why she took this place after Lilith, this was her last-ditch attempt at staying _alive_.

Her lips tremble around a word, a plea? He doesn’t know and doesn’t care. She’s dead before his stroke’s complete.

One smooth cut that clicks his wrist, cracks it, and her blood’s painting the wall a fetid blue. Her head thumps on the floor with a dull noise, soft, and her body slumps forward out of its chair. And, as it tumbles, the cloth across her legs slithers away to show off her crooked fish’s tail.

More bald patches where the scales refused to grow back in, more wrinkled white flesh, and Vergil wrinkles his healed-now nose as the smell wafts up from the carcass. She smells like rot and long-baking death, and he kicks her away with the tip of his boot. Watches her thud against the wall with a soft-slick sound, then turns his attention to her window.

The view is nice, gives a perfect look out at the club, nearly every inch of it, and the people writhing in it. And, standing on top of the bar, is Dante cleaving demons with Rebellion, holding them off with Ebony and Ivory. One tries tackling him and gets blown back with a shotgun Dante must’ve taken off one of the guards; the one crashes into two more in a blast of guts and gore.

Vergil takes a step closer, rests his hand on the glass and splays his fingers. Dante’s not a sleek-neat fighter, he never had formal training the way Vergil did, but he doesn’t need it. His punches are wild and telegraphed, but it hardly matters when he’s too quick to catch. His fist snaps out from the shoulder and connects with a demon’s face before the thing can move.

Rebellion comes around, comes up from the knees in an elegant twirl Vergil would never risk, and still lops off a head. Flashy, showy, cocky, that’s Dante _all_ over, but it doesn’t matter. His reflexes are too good, his aim’s too perfect. Enemies don’t get the drop on him because he can’t be predicted, and Vergil’s breath fogs the glass.

A guard gets in a lucky shot, up under Dante’s lax block, claws raking over taut muscle, claws raking _through_ taut muscle. Blood oozes, slick and thick, red and black and too much, and Vergil snarls. Pupils dilating in the reflection, nostrils flaring; he can smell the silver of Dante’s blood from here, all the way in unreality, and _no_.

The glass shatters, security film and runes breaking as one, crumbling under the force of his rage, and Vergil jumps back into the world without a sound. Yamato’s drawn, Yamato’s sheathed, and the body parts hit the floor before his feet.

“Ver—what are you doing?!” Dante yells, breaks his name in half so none of the scum can have it and turns with Rebellion in an arc of destruction.

Back in the world and Vergil notices the screaming, he couldn’t hear it in Vepar’s cove, interesting. Humans are screaming, guards are yelling, and Dante is panting. Nostrils flared, eyes tinted red, his hair—trigger, right, his trigger.

“Saving your ass,” Vergil answers, calm and collected and not two seconds from shoving his brother through a portal to safety. Ophion cracks past his ear, burning the air with divine glory, and Dante’s standing in front of him. So close, too close, Vergil watches the skin of his brother’s cheek knit together right before his eyes and he wants to— _slip his fingers into the cut, force it apart, make it bleed_ —cut down every devil in this place.

He settles for flinging a summoned sword through the three demonic bouncers running in from the doorway instead. Pins them to the wall like helpless flies and drags the swords down, cutting them in neat halves.

“This wasn’t the plan,” Dante growls, lips to his ear again, shifting his feet and lifting his arm to shoot behind Vergil’s back.

They’ve never fought so closely before they’ve barely fought together at all. But the slip and twist and _turn_ comes so naturally, puts them back to back facing down a scraggily circle of foes. Vergil doesn’t know why they’re still fighting, what the point is. Their mistress is dead and rotting in her watery grave, are they so happy to join her?

“It is now.”

* * *

Your heart’s beating half out your chest and your head’s pounding with the-the-the thought-thought-thought.

Are you human? No.

What are you? Don’t know.

“I’m human,” you snarl, plead. You’re human. There’s nothing else you _could_ be. You’re not a demon, you’ve got blood, you’ve got a heart; you can’t be a demon.

But what if right? What if you’re a demon too, like Sister Maggie, like all those piece of shit foster parents and the Warden? What if you’re the worst kind of demon. Loose cannon, dangerous, monster. What they were right to hate you—hurt you— _hate_ you?

“I’m not a fuckin’ demon,” you growl, beg. You’re human? Prove it. Right here, right now. Prove you’re human.

“Fine!”

And summon your sword? The one you called for the very first time when they locked you up? Tricky-tricky Dan- _te_. What’s this prove? This is a devil arm, the warden said so himself. A devil arm for a devil boy.

“Shut up!”

But these are your thoughts Dante, no one else’s. Not like when you’re in that other place, the one that feels like coming home and dying all in the same. These are just the thoughts in your head—the truths in your head.

Now, look yourself in the eye. Those eyes are just about glowing, aren’t they? That’s pretty inhuman of you. And what about that snarl? Teeth looking a lil sharp there kiddo, a little not too normal.

“Shut up.”

Shut up? Okay, but prove it. Prove you’re human. Prove you’re not the worst kind of devil.

Hmm, punching the mirror’s no help but it is, it _hurts_. Do demons even feel pain? Let’s find out. Grind your fist in the glass, slit the skin, feel the burn, good right? Human? Not quite. Let’s do it some more, again, again, again!

There we go! Look at all those pieces! And look at your blood on them, like a pretty stained glass Madonna, wouldn’t you say Dante? Still not human though, even if your skin’s shredded and bleded and….oh?

“Shut up.”

Rebellion’s pretty sharp, isn’t that what the Warden said? One of the Legendary devil arms? Look, your hand’s already healing up, skin knitting, blood drying, bet Rebellion wouldn’t let that happen. Wanna test it out? Yeah? Then go ahead.

Don’t tell say you’re pussying out now—well, well, well, the boy’s got some spunk. Doesn’t that hurt? Doesn’t it burn and sting and ache? Yes? Then at least you’re alive, at least you do bleed and you do hurt and you do know this proves nothing. Deeper doesn’t make it better, but by all means, go right ahead.

Splat your blood in the sink, stain the grimy porcelain pink, makes no difference what you are. Not human, not human, never was a fucking human—

* * *

“What the fuck was that?” Dante yells, and Vergil frowns, shakes out his wrist. One of the flunkies got a lucky shot. Broke the damn thing, half chopped it off, and the nerves are still coming back online. Feels like a tingle, feels like static, but he can manage.

“What do you mean? You were _there_ Dante, you saw what it was,” Vergil says, annoyed yes, fed up yes, but not a bit remorseful.

They cleared the whole club, together, usurped Vepar and killed every last one of her minions. And, he managed to put a seal on the place, to stop anything else coming through without permission. Maybe it wouldn’t stop the more powerful creatures, the nastier ones, but it would alert him, and Vergil would be able to deal with them at his leisure.

They did what they set out to do, and he doesn’t understand why Dante’s angry with him now.

Enough to refuse portal travel with Yamato and force Vergil to chase after him through the streets. Enough to slam open the door and punch a hole in the wall with the knob. They’re going to need that fixed, preferably soon.

Vergil sighs thinking about it. How many repairmen would be available during this mortal apocalypse?

“Hey, where the fuck are you going? We’re not done here Vergil,” and Dante drags him back by the shoulder, jerks him around, and Vergil frowns harder.

He wants a _shower_. To get the Kraken’s blood and the demon’s blood, Dante’s and his _own_ blood off his skin. The tacky feeling of it is unpleasant at best, seeping into the folds of his skin and burning at worst.

But no, he’s forced to continue a pointless argument with his brother.

His brother who’s staring at him with something like disbelief, something like disappointment, and Vergil doesn’t _get_ it. They’re arguing, again, over something so foolish, _again_ , and Vergil can’t understand. What’s the point of this?

The few true humans there weren’t harmed and they’re safe, semi-lost extremities notwithstanding.

“Vepar’s dead and we cleared the club, I call that a success! Are you mad that I cut in on your fight?”

Because that must be it.

“Am I—fucking _shit_! None of those cocksuckers were supposed to see you, _Vergil_.”

Because that isn’t it.

Dante’s staring at him, staring him _down_ , and Vergil doesn’t understand. What does Dante want from him? What will it take to smooth the crease between his hitched brows and get that devil may care mouth laughing again?

Is Dante worried about him? About demons coming after _him_ now? Well that particular ship is already sailed so he doesn’t really see the point but.

“I was fine being seen, I told you that before we went in there—” Vergil starts and gets cut off by Dante’s hand flying away from him, whipped back as if burned. And Vergil takes a step back, breathes a sharp breath. What the hell?

Behind him, over Dante’s shoulder, Kat appears in the doorway, bruises smeared under her eyes, expression wrinkled with _something_. She doesn’t move, just watches from behind Dante’s back, watches Vergil, and he wants her to leave. He doesn’t want her here for this—this _brother’s quarrel_.

This is between him and Dante, for them, and—

“Yeah? Well what if they go after your parents, huh? You got a life, or did you forget that?” Dante asks, voice pitched low, shoulders hitching up. Defensive like he wasn’t in the club, like he isn’t during fights. Vergil reaches for him instinctively, wanting to soothe, make this alright.

Then Dante’s words catch up to him and what?

“My parents? My? Our parents are dead Dante! Eva’s dead and Sparda is as good as!” he splutters, forcing his reaching fingers into a fist and down by his side. There’s a tension headache building between his eyes, a vice at his temples, pinching tighter-tighter the longer this goes on.

Dante’s making no sense, angry for a reason Vergil just can’t parse. When they fought in the club, back to back, moving in perfect sync with each other, it was perfect. Incredible, _indomitable_. He felt safe there, on top of the world with his brother where nothing could touch them. Together, like they were always meant to be.

His blood sang and Yamato shone, and they cut down the wretches that dare oppose them. It was a whirlwind of using his body like he so rarely got to and fighting with someone he’d never really forgotten and welling up with so much power, not enough power. All his and all Dante’s and all **_theirs_**.

Then it was over. A flick of a blade, to clean the metal, a gurgle of sound from a slit throat, and it was over. He’d still been there though, on the perfect plateau of power and harmony, and when he turned to bask in his brother’s own hedonism, Dante had looked away. Turned and stalked away, a back instead of a smile.

And now, they’re here and they’re angry and Vergil can feel the endorphin rush cresting.

“Your human parents Vergil! Sera—Seraphina and Dom? They got no fucking idea what’s coming for them because you couldn’t stick to the fucking plan.”

For a second, for two even, Vergil has no idea who Dante’s talking about. The names, the people those names belong to, are so detached from everything Dante and devil and demonic, that Vergil blanks.

He blinks and shakes his head and blinks some more because this is about them? How… ** _why_**?

“Dante you—I mean—Dante, they…” Vergil starts, stops, and frowns. Why are they the first thing on Dante’s mind and how is Vergil supposed to explain that he doesn’t care about them?

Seraphina and Dominic, he cut ties with them the second he remembered his real parents. He unhooked their thorny love from his skin, burned childish attachment from his heart, and when they started to drift again, he didn’t cling.

He never could stop them from finding their way back to their businesses and their affairs, but he’d tried. As a child with no one else in the world, as a teenager with warped expectations of family, he _had_ tried. But not after he remembered Sparda and Eva. Dominic and Seraphina were nothing compared to them, so Vergil let them go as easily as the name they’d given him.

Subtly, of course, so he doesn’t care. If the demons go after them now well. If the few devils Vergil and Dante let run off into the night, do manage to match Vergil the Nephilim to Christopher Alderidge, then Vergil will be impressed. If those pissants manage to find Dominic and Seraphina, then more power to them, but he isn’t going to lose any sleep over it.

And he could say that, say all of it. Go into mind numbing detail of just how little he cared for the humans who’d taken him in. The ways Seraphina had kept the rage inside him red hot and how Dominic sharpened his frustration into a fine edge. Vergil could tell Dante all about his terrible fucking adoptive parents but…but his brother cares about this.

Vergil can’t—he _won’t_ burst that bubble. Dante’s had too many dreams taken from him, too many bubbles popped; Vergil refuses to take anything else.

“They’re safe, I took care of that before I ever thought of the Order,” Vergil lies, bitter and terrible, but it’s to protect. Dante doesn’t need to hear all the ways Seraphina and Dominic were unsuited to parenthood, and he doesn’t need to hear about Vergil’s petty traumas.

Those are nothing compared to Dante’s trials.

“Seraphina was in Paris for a fashion show.”

That’s a lie, she’s in the country, she was in the Malibu beach house when Limbo broke and she’s there now.

“Dominic was on a business conference in Japan.”

Another lie. Dominic is two states over, desperately trying to recoup losses, looking for work arounds and alternatives that give the demons as wide a berth as humanly possible.

“They’re safe.”

They aren’t, but Dante doesn’t need to know that.

“I promise,” Vergil murmurs, low and desperate, like he cares, like he wants Dante to understand. He does. He very much does want Dante to understand but he knows Dante doesn’t work like him.

His brother is brash and standoffish but only because he cares too deeply and too much. All those years of living on the fringes of society was to protect people, he pushed them away to keep them from getting hurt. He fought demons to settle his own grudges sure, but he did it to protect the humans too.

Dante cares about people he’s never met, a man and woman who’d look down at him for his grunginess and his vulgarity and write him off as another criminal punk. Seraphina and Dominic might even hate him, and Vergil knows Dante would still try to protect them because they were supposed to mean something to **_him_**.

And Vergil isn’t _like_ that. He doesn’t care like he should, he doesn’t know why but he can’t.

Dante would lay his life down for strangers, he already has. He’d fight himself dead, work his bones brittle for nameless, faceless people, because it’s the right thing to do, and that’s admirable but ultimately useless. What’s the point of helping one man if it means a dozen more suffer?

In situations like theirs, the individual cannot matter more than the collective. Vergil wants to bring the demons to justice sure, and he wants to liberate humanity yes, but the only way any of this will work is on a societal scale. Why feed one man one meal when he could eradicate poverty and feed them all?

“Listen, we’re both tired,” Vergil starts, supplicating now, reasonable, “and I’ve got blood in unmentionable places. I’m sorry for deviating from our plan without consulting you, I’ll do better in the future, but right now I just want a bath. We can pick this up later, if you want.”

The “ _if you want_ ” is the softest part. An offer. The _“if you want_ ” puts all this back in Dante’s court, gives him an out or an opening to press and it’s more than Vergil’s given anyone else. He knows the art of war, words are weapons and conditions are the trenches; he knows the art of war and he’s a triumphant conqueror.

Dante knows the art of war as a solider on the frontlines, he takes orders well. Dante’s a general taking up a fallen man’s sword and leading the charge, he knows when to step out of line and push the advantage. Vergil would never call his brother stupid because Dante _isn’t_ , but his strengths lie in the blood and muck of the world, not the war table. Vergil could talk around him, admit to nothing, agree to jack shit if he felt like it.

He could end the fight before it started, twist it around and make it kneel at his feet, but he doesn’t, because he loves his brother. His frowning, confused brother whose tense shoulders are straightening back out, easing down. Dante falls out of that instinctive, defensive stance and Vergil feels like he’s won.

And, this time, when he leaves for his bedroom, there’s no hand turning him around. There are eyes on his back, two sets watching him go, but Vergil keeps his steps smooth and his eyes on the door.

* * *

“Young offenders rehabilitation program, subject 64432B.”

Can hear him, the asshole, asswipe Warden they call a _psychiatrist_. Through the walls, behind the glass, mmm yeah, he’s there, watching, making his notes. Doesn’t think his voice carries this far, not without the speaker crackling through and cracking up, but it does.

Loud and clear sarge. Here at a-fucking-tention.

“Psycho-evaluation treatment; day four. Resume.”

Psych eval, for the chained up, cracked out, crackhead. Oh yeah, these are the big leagues boys, place your fucking bets. Is it gonna be schizophrenia? Gonna be psychopathy? Heard those before, how about something new?

“What. Is. Your. Name?”

Like they don’t know. Nabbed, grabbed, and stuck in a fucking tortu— _prison_ cell because what? Because they’re drinking the Kool-Aid and seeing demons where they ain’t? Fuck off and pull the other one, ‘s got bells on it.

And hey, they’re calling this psych eval? Picking brains, looking for tocks, and ticks. Hacking it open, smearing that grey matter all over the floor. Fuck yeah, sounds like the best kinda party. Better’n the ones that wake up drunk and fucked and tossed. Better’n the ones that chase the dragon dead and taste like sea-salt cum right in the back of the throat.

This is the kind, the best kind, that wakes up slit and sliced and bleeding all pretty, red _nice_. 

Oh but that’s too _morbid_ , so‘s it the sub-top-drug-drop talkin’, or’s it just the delirium choking in? Haven’t been force fed anything since what? Day before yesterday? Longer? No tubes sliding down a dry throat, no pinched nose, and jaw broke here _kids_ , no siree. Just no food. No water. No shut eye an’ rest neither.

Just hanging out, arms spread like the one true sinner. Blinking dry eyes, burning eyes, and seeing this grungy lil cell. Seeing the squirming-worming devil tipped madness of the world. Oh yeah baby, just the tip.

“I will ask you again.”

Yeah, sure you will. And what’s with the voice huh? Been sucking down the cancer sticks since the sixties? Got your throat slit and stitched back together? Wanna repeat, Warden?

“What is your name?”

And that’s the million-dollar question Alex! What’s a name? What’s in a name? What _good’s_ a name?

Huh? What good’s a name? Don’t mean jack and or shit without some connections, some good ole fashioned nepotism. What’s _your_ name Warden? Gonna say or’re you hiding behind that plexi-plate-fibre glass cuz yer shy?

Afraid the big bad prisoner’ll hurt ya? Oh, so much more than hurt. Unlock these fuckin’ chains why don’tcha? Metal’s cutting in, rubbing the skin red and raw, not that you care. Not that anyone does. And what’s a little cuff burn between friends?

“Subject 64432B, I asked you a question.”

And you can blow it right out ya dick! Just let these chains drop. What’re they made of? Strong stuff, break-proof, shatter-proof, think-proof. Hn, yeah all that and more baby-baby-baby doll, nothing but the worst for the prize prisoner, right?

Oh? Oh ho boy. Lights’re flicker-fuckering, didn’t pay the bill? Didn’t chase out all those sad little souls? Cause they’re here, still here, whispering-saying what? Saying died this way, blood dried into the tiles. Saying they cried this hard, vomited all over the floor. Nasty.

“Things would go much smoother if you complied.”

Yeah, sure they would. All these bruises would heal right up and the doors’d swing wide open and this prize prisoner could take a bite right outta ya heart. Right? Want a name? Well there’s dozens, which d’ya want? _Tony? Leon? Damien?_ What about _Ja_ —Oh! Ohh, right, you want the other one, the _secret_ one.

Because it’s special, guy that goes with it is supposed to be real _special_. Heard the spiel, watched the propaganda, and gotta say, ain’t too compelling. Dante, the one you want, he’s ah, he’s strong and smart and dangerous, right? ‘s what all the rumours been saying?

Dante, Dante, Dan- _te_ , yeah, heard of him. Devil killing demon slayer with some power; confident, suave, devil may care, he’s got the ladies gagging for the cock and the gents begging for the ass. Yeah, he’s something else, huh?

Sorry to kill the dream Warden. Sorry to worry and sorry to disappoint but _that_ guy ain’t around. Yeah, nope, nowhere to be found. He ain’t in this lovely cell, wilting-wondering-wasting away, and he ain’t out there either. He’s dea—buzzing? What’s that buzzing-humming-thrumming? Is that the electric—

* * *

They don’t end up talking about it. Not the morning after that’s slow and aching like a bad hangover. Not over breakfast that’s soggy cereal, because he keeps getting distracted by reports, and burnt toast, because Dante still hasn’t figured out the toaster. There’s a moment somewhere mid-afternoon when Dante comes to his room, leaning against the doorway in a pose that’s everything but relaxed.

A few seconds of him; looking up from his laptop at his brother, blinking in the mellow-yellow sunlight, and bracing for another fight. Because Dante’s jaw is clenched, and his eyes are hard, and his lips twitch with whatever he wants to say. Because maybe Vergil’s spoiling for a fight, a bone breaking, blood spilling, bruise leaving kind of fight, even if the doesn’t really want to hurt his brother. 

He doesn’t want to and Dante doesn’t want to, but there’s an expectation there. With Dante haloed in gold and Vergil basking in shadow, there’s a note humming in their blood that they can’t go deaf to.

There’s no fight though, because Dante’s shoulders slump and Vergil’s back bows, and Kat pops up behind him. Saying things about a specific report and about another blackout, bulldozing right over everything else. They lose the moment and Vergil considers it dropped. He dwells on it for a few hours, then he forgets it, because there are more important things to consider.

Like the club under his control now, locked up and closed down until he figures out how to undo the seal. Like the whispers of an official report from the governments of the world. Like the phone call that drags him out of the apartment and up onto the roof because…

“And you’re certain.”

…there’s better reception for the call Rea’s making from another country.

“Hard to be wrong Vergil, there’s only six of them,” Rea says, biting back a scoff, and Vergil wants to rip out his pointed tongue.

Scoffing like it’s normal for one of _them_ to come over. Scoffing like this isn’t supposed to _mean_ anything.

He wants to fling the phone off the edge, watch it arc so gracefully before smashing into the next apartment. Glass and plastic flying everywhere, a circuit board breaking; it wouldn’t make him any happier, but it would be something to do. Something dangerously close to losing control in front of a conspiring acquaintance, so Vergil reigns himself in.

He breathes through his nose, slow and measured, and looks across at the dark city, Limbo City. Mostly abandoned by now, mostly overrun by demons. Whatever humans are left already belonged to the demons and they don’t care about keeping the city running. Vergil’s lived here for years, knows this skyline better than any other, and it’s a stranger to him now.

Missing buildings suck at his eyes like missing teeth, dragging his focus over to where they should be. Dark windows wink at him ever so coyly, begging him to come see what’s inside or light them back up. And, of course, Mundus’ bank still dominates the silver-soaked sky, the only thing Vergil could do without.

Silver Sacks and silver skies, and a silver haired prince of the night, at least, silver haired if Rea’s right.

His Royal Highness, Demon Prince of the Night, Lord Seere, Vergil’s read about him. One of the six demon princes, not the oldest but one of, not the most powerful but close. He’d be unremarkable except for his travelling, except that he’s the only prince that made repeated visits to the human realm. The others, according to the very ancient scripts, kept to their circles of Hell and stayed well away from humanity.

They considered themselves above it and most of the petty squabbles of the upper nobility. Like Mundus in his gilded tower of shit. Seere stopped coming after Mundus took power and it’s anybody’s guess why. The ban on free travel between Hells? The noble titles getting snatched every other day? The graceless seduction of humans and waste of so much knowledge?

Vergil can’t be sure about that, but he is sure about this; Seere is here for something big. And, if Vergil keeps his head and thinks it all through, this demon prince might be _exactly_ what he needs.

“But you do your research, you know that,” Rea scoffs, feathers ruffling like static in the background. Vergil looks across at the river; yes, he does know that.

And he knows that Rea will turn on him the second an opportunity presents itself. He knows that the devils slinking out of Hell right now would rather impale themselves than bow to him. They hate him as much as they fear him and that’s not conducive to ruling; he’d rather have their unmatched, unmitigated fear.

So Seere, a relic from the time before Mundus, might be what he needs to tip the balance. If he can convince a prince, _this prince_ , to see sense, then that’s half the war already won. But first; why is he here?

“And you do yours, where is he?”

There’s only one place he could be, but Vergil still asks. Andrealphus is terrified of him, the greater part of the Marquis is exquisitely horrified of what Sparda’s sons are, but Vergil knows Andrealphus. He simpered and paraded for Mundus too.

“The Avalon Hotel, penthouse suite.”

As expected.

Where did Seere cross? Rea doesn’t know. When did he cross? Rea can’t say. But he’s in the Avalon now, drinking wine, drinking blood, and waiting to make his move. Vergil could wait for it, see what comes and how, or he could be proactive. Make a few enquiries, offer a neutral meeting.

The prince knows where he is, Vergil’s sure of that. Call it…intuition, call it a cold feeling settling between his shoulder blades and pulsing with something close to pain. Seere knows where he is and Seere knows what he’s done.

Either through the prince’s own means or Rea’s, Seere knows, and maybe he’s waiting too. It can’t be a coincidence that Seere shows up right after Vergil steals the liminal space back, he wants something with it, thus he wants something from Vergil.

And it all comes back around to what he wants to do. Does he wait to be approached-attacked-propositioned or does he make contact himself? Because time’s trickling by and there are others who’ll come, all of the old nobility will come slinking back, and what then? Will there be a war?

Vergil’s not sure, but he should do something before that happens.

“If that’s all? I have more work to do,” he murmurs, cutting the call before Rea can say anything else. And, because it’s only him on top of the roof— _on top of the world_ —he cocks his arm back and sends the phone flying into the darkness.

The crack and splinter of glass-plastic-metal is just as satisfying as he thought. Not at all.

* * *

“Young offenders rehabilitation program, subject 64432B.”

“Psycho-evaluation treatment; day five. Resume.”

“Young offenders rehabilitation program, sub-subject-ect 64432B.”

“Psycho-evaluation treatment; day eleven. Re-Re-Resume.”

“—Subject fiv—teen. Resume.”

“—day ten. What is your name?”

“—64444633B. Psychotic break—electroshock— _clear_!”

“—Exorcizamus te, omnis immunde spiritus, omni satanica potestas—”

Where are—where’s this? What are—what’s calling-alling me?

“Vade retro Sparda!”

Sparda? Sparda. Where is my Sparda?

Where is my Eva?

_The house is burning and Yamato is desperate. To get them out, get them away. What can I do? Nothing. Sparda where is Eva? Sparda where are you?_

“Fu-ck you!” a boy’s growling and a boy’s howling and a boy’s familiar. Why familiar? Where am I?

_Blade deep in concrete. Useless without the hand to hold. Useless to save._

In a cold place, a cold case. Locked inside old metal and away from; blood, slaughter. Haven’t drank in so long, dull for too long. Listen. What are they screaming? Who are they cursing?

Mundus. Boy-King Mundus—no, not a boy. Grown Mundus, too big for his boots. Wretched blood betrayer Mundus.

“What. Is. Your. Name?”

Sparda’s gone, he’s left us. Why? Must be a why…Mundus. Mundus and Eva. Eva’s dead. Yes dead. Holding off Mundus, saving the children, where’s the children?

_Dante is weeping. Soot covered sorrow. Holding his mother’s corpse, stroking mother’s cheek. Vergil is staring. Silent horror shock. Reaching for his brother, but stuck._

“Shock him again.”

Two children, two boys; Dante, Vergil. Who did Sparda give me? The darker one, the fiercer one; blood on his hands, wrath on his lips. Dante. Protect Dante, go to his call, not Sparda anymore. Nor Eva.

Shrieking-yowling-howling. _Dante_.

“What the—”

Dante yes, here, mine now. Hurt now. What have they done to you my Dante?

“Get it outta there!”

Broken bones, bloodied skin, tsk no.

‘ _Take me, Dante_ ’

A whisper in his brain, a wordless sound. Does he hear me? Through the congealed delirium and fatigue? Yes? Yes! Good boy, resilient boy.

Now, take me in your hand. Yes, wrap your fingers around the hilt. Smaller hand than used to be, slimmer fingers that tremble and rubbed raw palm, but a good grip. Then, slash backwards and quick. Through the chains and sigils. Good boy.

He’s wobbling on his legs, shaky, but he can stand. Yes, it’s okay to lean on me Dante. Now, catch your breath, take your mark. How much space and how long a reach? Shift your grip down, lower, yes there, and slice with purpose.

At and through the guards. Your reach is longer than theirs, your sword is better than their batons. Beautiful and terrible I go, he wields, and we cut them throat to crotch, crotch to throat. Beautiful and terrible I go, he wields, and their rotted guts spill at his feet.

To be slick again, wet with blood again. There’s no better appreciation. Than to sing as he swings, and cut clean through fat, sinew, and bone. Shall we paint the walls with their colour? Or rain it down? Flood the floor, and the world too?

“Who are you?” he asks-pants, staring at me in wonder and my poor Dante. He doesn’t know me, doesn’t know his Sparda or Eva, and I cannot tell him. Sparda’s touch in his mind is too heavy, and too clear; Dante cannot know them and he cannot get told. Yet.

Not yet and not by me. Sad, so sad, but fair. To keep him safe, he cannot know, and I _will_ keep him safe.

“Who are you?” he asks, not knowing himself or me, but he’s a devil’s child through and true.

Devil’s instinct in the way he fights through this prison. Cutting and hacking and parrying like his father before. And familiarity in the manic grin stretching his lips wide.

And devil’s eyes, glaring down the Warden, my point to his throat. The man whose voice echoes through this prison’s suffering. The man who beat, bruised, burned, electrocuted, emaciated, exsanguinated **_my_** devil’s child.

A step closer, push my tip harder. Till a perfect drop of blood beads. Till the Warden opens his mouth to beg.

“My name is Dante.”

There is instinct and rage in my Dante who cannot know himself. And an all too familiar devilish satisfaction when the Warden’s head goes flying in justified,

‘ _I am your Rebellion’_

* * *

A month comes and goes in the whirlwind end of days. Slipping through his fingers, falling through the cracks. He loses time and efficiency as steadily as the city loses power and the governments lose control. And what do any of them have to show for it?

Nothing.

The government does press release after press release. Warning citizens to stay away from their places of worship, because these demons make a mockery of the Lord. Advising them to travel in groups, but beware, devils are attracted to large crowds. These things can be killed, arm yourselves, but some of them won’t die and attempted kills turn you into a target.

Move out of the city. Stay away from the country. Don’t rest near water. Open land is dangerous. Every new bit of propaganda paranoia contradicts itself and does nothing to give the people faith. Even without the Order agents working to systematically undermine the governments of the world, Vergil has no doubt the people would turn against their leaders.

Every informational video made by inexperienced devil hunters is another nail in the coffin of this world’s one percent. Every false promise and Latin spewing priest is another chime from the death bell of Mundus’ regime. All of it’s coming down, and Vergil still isn’t satisfied because it isn’t _enough_.

Because the demons aren’t overrunning humanity. There’s no end of days and blooded seas, no trumpets crashing on high or fire drowning the world. Mundus was defeated and the demons released but…but that’s all. A demon prince and a few nobles, but that’s all.

Where’s the apocalypse he was promised? Where’s the host of Heaven and hawks of war he’s been aching—

“Hey, relax, you got this,” Dante comforts him and Vergil starts, every muscle tensing as he comes back to himself. Away from the danger days, back into the underground studio.

The walls are off-white grey, not rusted-blood brown. The floor is unfinished concrete, not smeared with the innards of his people. This studio is like that studio, at former HQ, and it isn’t. The room is smaller, the set up less elaborate, but they don’t need much.

They just need; Dante behind the camera, and Kat manning the controls, ready to set the hack and breathe the feed. They just need; Vergil standing in front the camera, in his coat, in his mask, in his Anarchist Jack get up again.

“Thank you, Dante,” Vergil murmurs, too sincere for the size of the kindness, but what does it matter? Dante grins at him, preens under the gratitude, and that’s worth any price.

Vergil had expected an apocalypse after Mundus’ death because the demons he’d hunted down had damn near promised it. Before Hell had a King, there was chaos, violence, war. The angelic host would do battle against the demonic legion on this wretched earth and the humans could not exist. Rivers of blood, skies stifled with feathers, barren fields sown with sin.

There was no end in sight, no clear winner. And then, one day between infinities, one devil rose above the rest. He stood against the Lord of Heaven and called for what could almost be mistaken for a ceasefire.

God and the Devil found some common ground, some reason to retreat to their lands, and in the ensuing calm, humans came forth. That first Devil King wasn’t Mundus, that first Lord is lost to time, and the second, and the third, even the fourth, but they don’t matter. The one in the throne doesn’t matter, they’re interchangeable. What matters is that there’s a King at all.

Before the King, there was apocalypse. Now they’re after the King, and where’s the end?

“Want me a to do a countdown?” Dante asks, swinging the camcorder back around with a wink. And Vergil snorts. This is ridiculous, this is all impossibly ridiculous, and not at all what he’d planned.

The second wave was supposed to be _covert_. Troublemaking on message boards, incendiary replies in comment sections, exposing corrupt politicians one at a time. People were easy to rile up and easy to mobilize, but Vergil wanted to win the war of position before he started a revolution. He wanted his dissatisfaction guaranteed.

Instead, they’re going to shoot a live broadcast that’ll be seen all over the world.

They’re going to drag the Order right back into the limelight and force people to realise they were right. They were always right. This’ll turn the tide, get rid of the last bit of doubt in everybody’s mind, because they’ve tried subtlety so now it’s time for something more dramatic.

“If you want,” Vergil says, adjusting his cuffs, cracking his neck. The war of position is taking too long and he’s getting antsy.

The throne of Hell sits empty and the Host of Heaven is absent; the demonic nobility is still hiding away, and Vergil is tired of waiting. He’s going to expose the governments of the world, reveal all their nasty double dealing and backdoor bargaining. He’s going to blow this bitch wide open.

“And we’re live in 5, 4,” Dante starts and Vergil smiles behind his mask. Kat, standing behind Dante, looking at the computer, gives a thumbs up.

“3, 2.”

Vergil thinks about Barbas, and how Dante blew his brains out on live tv. He thinks about his Order members being gunned down and not being able to do anything to stop it.

“1,” Dante points, overdramatic and over the top and Vergil grins.

“ ** _People of the world, long time no truth.”_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ngl folks, I started this back in November because youtube recced me Throat Full of Glass and I fell into the DmC rebutt hole. I meant this to be a gritty, edgelord fest of self-satisfying gore and that's it but nah, I had to fix that ending. Vergil and Dante do not fight! They love each other and that's it! Also Kat's here.


	2. Demons' God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What are they doing here? The three of them. Him and Vergil and Kat. They were supposed to free the world, and they did that, so what now? What's the next move? What's the better move. Dante doesn't know, but he trusts his brother enough to not care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specific Gore Warnings: Blood. Self-Harm via Sword. Canon Typical Violence.
> 
> Cw: Alcohol. Cigarettes. Memory Manipulation

When it finally came smash-crashing down, the glass house of a fucking world breaking on their backs and silting their lungs, there was just one thing Dante could think about; **_Vergil_**.

Vergil his brother. Vergil his twin. Vergil who he’d forgotten and hadn’t remembered but still _missed_ so fucking much.

When Mundus tried to rip open his ribcage, crack it like a fucking egg and bleed him out on that fucking rooftop, he could only think about Mother. Red-red hair spilling around her face, she was so pretty. Red-red blood spotting her nice white dress, she was so dead.

And, when he swings the camera around to get Vergil centre frame, catching the light off that stupid mask, it’s the only think Dante can think about. Laying there dying and watching Eva die.

“ ** _People of the world, long time no truth.”_**

Vergil throws his arms wide, like Eva’s wings going slack, and he cocks his head to the side, like Eva’s lolling on her broken neck. Vergil’s alive though, he is very much alive, and he’s putting on the theatrics; with the mask he ripped off a demon’s corpse and the voice he made on a computer.

Dante bets Vergil’s grinning behind the dreamrunner’s face, glad to be back in his element which is the smackdab in front of the world.

**_“And no time any power, but that’s just how the demons wanted you and how your governments delivered you. They fed you lies to keep you complacent and weak.”_ **

The hands drop and Verge tips his head the other way, voice all low and whispery like he’s sharing a secret. Well he kind of is. According to all those reports he’s been stealing and reading and telling Dante about, Mundus owned _everything_. The governments, the banks, the corporations, everything worth owning was his, by proxy but still.

Mundus had the human world by the balls and now he doesn’t, and the house of cards is falling to shit. Again. There’s less smoke and dust this time, and Dante’s not choking on his own blood, but it’s practically the same. He’s here, Vergil’s there, and the world’s flipping upside right.

 ** _“Our officials were nothing more than puppets for the demons because they were scared. Of us, of our power. They knew what we could do together so they made sure we were always apart,”_** Vergil snarls, reaching for the camera as Dante takes a smooth step away.

According to Vergil, his anarchist brother, this was always part of the Order’s plan, the “ _totally gonna happen, no seriously_ ” second wave after Mundus’ death. According to that plan, the Order would let the world stew in demon soup for a month, give or take a week, so the people of the world could get a bittersweet mouthful of reality. Then, after the demons fucked shit up for a while, the Order’d turn up the heat.

Because they had everything right where they wanted it. They’d bring the demon shitshow to a boil and burn off all the doubt and second guessing, until there was nothing left but humanity’s festering anger at the bottom of the pot. Apparently, the Order needed it for the revolution, so it’d go down smooth and thick like a salty shot of…cognac. If the people weren’t out of their minds fed up with their clusterfuck governments, then they’d never stand up for themselves and fight back against the demon hordes.

Apparently. Dante’s not completely sold on that last part because if humanity was gonna rise up, he figures they would’ve already done it. Seriously, how’s Vergil so sure that festering anger hasn’t burned off like everything else? How’s he know the people will even win against the demons? It’s not exactly a fair match up, but…but Dante trusts his brother.

And, if Vergil thinks the humans can fight the demons and win, then okay. If this anarchist Jack Flash thing is how Vergil’s gonna get the humans on their side, then yeah, okay, Dante’s gonna help. Even if he thinks it’s both stupid and kinda cool.

“ ** _Wars, class division, racism and prejudice, the demons manufactured all of it to keep us apart because they were in control, but we’re the ones with power now! Look around you at the ruin of our world and ask yourself; am I ready to die like scum?”_** Verge growls, and the mask lights up with every word. Flashing good ole’ red, white, and blue, like any good union jackass.

Those lights are supposed to keep them safe, or so Verge says. Something about making it hard to get a clean look at where they’re filming and to cover up his whole face so they don’t know what he looks like. Though that ship’s already sailed, what with the storm on HQ and everything, but Vergil insisted.

He said it didn’t matter if the world already knew he was. So what if they’d seen his face plastered on every wanted list, read his name on the ticker tape? Vergil, Supposed Leader of the Order, wasn’t the crazy man in the videos screaming at them about the reality under reality. Vergil, “ _real name_ ” Christopher Alderidge, was just some rich fuck with too much money than he knew what to do with.

Nobody would trust Vergil, but they would at least listen to crazy, anarchist Jack Flash. So, lights and mask, Vergil needed both to mean something. Again, Dante’s not totally sold on it, but he’ll dance to Vergil’s tune.

All he really knows is that those lights throw weird skittering shadows and keep blowing out the colour balance, but fuck if they don’t look good. The walls look like they’re swarming with creepy-crawlies and the air looks like a shot of the sweet stuff. Vergil’s white-blond hair catches the colour when he cocks his head, makes him a redhead— _like Eva_ —makes him dead-blond— _like Dante when the world screams to a stop_ —and paints the whole thing neon blue.

The colour _also_ drags behind him like a blurry after image, blown out and exposed. Either Verge rigged the camera or he’s using some kind of magic. Dante doesn’t know and he kind of loves it. Who knew prim-proper brother had that kinda nasty?

Behind them, Kat’s click-clacking away on the laptop and mumbling under her breath. She’s co-ordinating this with Order people all around the world which is pretty impressive. When Mundus died and Limbo broke, Vergil said that included all the shields protecting highly sensitive demon data. All it’d take was a good enough hacker to break the regular cybersecurity and find it.

So governments, which were all in cahoots with old Mundy boy, shut down the internet everywhere. People couldn’t post anything, couldn’t look up anything else, they could just see a few government approved sites. Verge’s got his Order people piggybacking off those safe sites to show off this video real time, and after, they’ll all work to keep it up.

Until other hackers figure out what they did and start re-uploading it for them, or the government shuts down their own sites. Dante doesn’t totally understand it, way too technical, but it’s still fucking impressive.

 ** _“Ask yourselves; will I stay weak and foolish in the face of my own demise? W_** _il **l I l** e **t t** h **em** win?!” _Vergil yells so loud the voice thing in his mask crackles, “ ** _Or_** _are **we**_ goi ** _ng to ta_** ke ** _b_** _a— **ck wh** at’ **s ours?!”**_

A burst of high-pitched feedback has Dante wincing, but he doesn’t drop the camera. He keeps it trained on Vergil as his brother punches his open palm, knuckles showing sharp against the blue latex. And, for one split second eternity, the air freezes blue and Vergil’s roar echoes into forever. In his ears, in his head, in his bones.

Scratching in his throat, breaking on his back, curling in his gut— _Dante sees his brother burning with power, washed with it. He’s rage and he’s justice and_ —and then the world snaps back into place and Dante does a little twirl to keep the camera out of Vergil’s grasping hands. There’s a leering-sneering smile on that mask of his but Dante knows Verge’s grinning manic underneath it too, a little more unhinged, and he matches it. Flashes teeth that are perfectly blunt and perfectly capable of tearing out a throat in three seconds flat.

Then he backs up against the wall, pulling out for that money-maker shot.

 ** _“_** _The choice is ours_ ,” Vergil murmurs, head bowed, voice crackling, “The choice is finally ours.”

And the voice distortion cuts completely on the last line, breaking off as Vergil crosses his hands over the miraculously appearing Yamato, and completing the picture-perfect anarchist.

One second stretches long, into two, and Dante’s holding his breath as he waits for the all clear. The flashing lights keep going and it’s kinda eerie, how Vergil is statue still, not breathing, not moving, but everything around him still is. Dante wonders what the fuck this must look like to the people watching.

Then Kat clears her throat and Dante hits the end button.

“ _Aaaand_ that’s a wrap! Good job everybody, great stuff, great stuff,” he says, after he’s sure the camera’s off.

Kat snorts and Vergil does a mocking lil bow, but Dante counts both as a major success. Those two have been working way too hard on this stuff, it’s good to see them having fun for once. Maybe even twice.

“And to celebrate our highest rated episode ever, first round’s on me,” Dante says, tossing the camera and catching it a couple times.

He doesn’t think Verge or Kat will take him up on it; Kat’s get her face buried in three different screens and Verge’ll definitely want to keep an eye on the next few hours. Dante still offers though because…hmm, because it’s what he does? Drinking, fucking, fighting, that’s what he’s good at and mostly all he knows. And he’s heard somewhere that sharing your passions with loved ones is good or something.

“Give me a few minutes?” Vergil asks, and Dante nearly drops the camera.

“What?” and it’s an echo, Dante then Kat. Two heads snapping up, two pairs of eyes fixed on Vergil with his katana on his shoulder and a smile on his face.

What?

“He’s right Kat, we did well tonight,” Vergil says, shrugs, and tosses his mask in the air, “We deserve a break.”

And catches it with a finger hooked on the edge, right by the eye.

* * *

Lies are silver and silence is golden. Anger is wet and sadness is crisp, and the boy looking at him from the mirror is…is.

He opens his mouth and sees…silver. Silver tongue, metallic and wrong. Silver teeth, glinting and clinking against each other. Silver gums and silver cheeks and golden throat. So many lies.

He looks at his eyes and they’re…blue. Ice blue, cold blue, burning heart of a star blue. There’s a fire burning under the ice, licking the surface and crackling hot, but locked away. He looks away.

He strokes his jaw and traces his lips, backs of knuckles dragging along his throat. A pale column of flesh, so vulnerable, completely vulnerable. There’s something wet there, trapped in his gold-leafed oesophagus and he…he should get it out. Shouldn’t he? Yes. He thinks he should.

* * *

They don’t go to Devils to get a drink, because it’s locked down, chained up, and off limits until Vergil can figure out how to break the warding. They head down to Belleview instead, to one of the nasty, piece of shit bars Dante practically grew up in. Where the beer’s piss, the staff couldn’t give less of a fuck, and nobody seems to care about the apocalypse falling down around their ears.

“You’ve got an interesting idea of a good time, brother,” Vergil mutters, arm slung around his shoulder and half sitting in his lap to touch less of the booth and none of the wall. Dante smirks and doesn’t mention Vergil could’ve picked the place. Dante even offered. But nope, his dear brother insisted they go somewhere Dante liked because he was the one that wanted to drink in the first place.

He probably should’ve guessed Dante wasn’t gonna pick a five star restaurant or a fancy schmancy gentlemen’s club. Nah, Rev’s is so much more his speed. Close to the water, never been cleaned, and good for hustling mooks at pool. Does he care that this place is probably two seconds away from a mass poisoning? Not really.

The only thing that matters in Rev’s is that there’s no demons here. None have ever showed their fugly faces where Dante could see them and there’s probably a reason for that but fuck if he cares to find out. There’s no demons and that suits him just fine.

“You’re just a prude, Vergil,” Kat teases, both hands wrapped around her bottle of 666 and leaning dangerously close to the tabletop. And he does mean dangerous. These things only get wiped down at the end of the night, after all the alcohol’s been spilled and vomit’s been spit up. They were lucky to get a side booth this late in the night but it’s a near guarantee that someone already hacked up a lung in here already.

“Gotta loosen up and live a little, we won!” she giggles, rocking forward and Dante catches her by the shoulder before she can faceplant on the table. She’s barely halfway through the bottle but yeah, already sauced. Cheeks all pink, eyes hazy, the girl’s a lightweight, who’d’a thunk?

Dante figures he’ll have to carry her out when they’re done here but they’re far from done here. Kat’s drunk, a giggly drunk apparently, but Vergil’s still too tight laced and coherent next to him…on him, same difference. Dante’s used to it, and so’s Rev’s.

This place never claimed to care about personal space, just don’t fuck out in the open and wipe your cum off the floor. And if you get the shit kicked outta ya, at least have the decency to die in the street. Dante’s done plenty of both and it’s good to be back, for a while.

The smell of smoke and rot is comfortable, familiar, and the weight of somebody in his lap is even better. Sure this time it’s his brother half sitting on him to avoid touching the wall too much but who gives a shit about the details?

“Did you ever think we’d see the day?” Kat mumbles, dragging a finger down the side of her beer, smiling to herself.

Her voice’s so low the squeak of skin on glass almost drowns it out. Almost covers up the little piece of wistful happiness dripping down her chin and tugging on her tipsy smile.

Kat’s…she uh, huh. She’s nothing like anyone he’s ever met before and sometimes Dante doesn’t know what to make of her. The things she does, the things she knows, she’s a witch yeah but Dante seriously doubts other witches are like her. He refuses to believe other witches could be like her.

Kat just—she accepts things so easy. She accepts that Vergil was gonna leave her to suffer with Mundus, that Dante had to fight his brother down on that. He told her. Of course he told her, because she deserved to know, but she didn’t care. Not in any way that he could see. She’d said that she understood why Vergil hadn’t wanted to risk it, that she would’ve accepted it if he left her for dead and Dante just...doesn’t get it.

He’s still kinda mad at his brother about that. Vergil was so ready to throw her away, after all she’d done for him and his Order. But, he’s kind of not mad too? Ugh it’s confusing and he’s not drunk enough for any of this to make sense.

“Yes, I always did,” Vergil says as Dante tips his bottle back and chugs the fucking thing.

Throat bare to the bar, mouthful of spicy, almost painful beer, yeah this’s familiar too. Familiar enough to loosen the knot of tension in his gut, the unpleasantness that always tightens up whenever he thinks about Vergil and Kat and Kat and Vergil.

He loves them, both of them, and that burns nearly as much as the beer. Creeping across his cheeks in a flush same as the 666 down his gullet. Dante loves them, heh, he’s got people to love now. Weird.

“Didn’t you?” Vergil asks, leaning forward, leaning closer. He drops an elbow on the table to steady himself and tips the bottom of Dante’s bottle, helps get out those last few drops. Thanks bro.

Kat’s halfway through hers and tipsy. Dante’s downed two, three now, and the buzz’s just setting in. Vergil hasn’t touched his yet, except now he is. Curling light blue, latex wrapped fingers around the sweating neck, thumb catching on the rim like a tease, but he doesn’t lift it to his lips. They’ve been here an hour now and the most Verg’s done is cradle the thing close.

Dante figures Verg’s never had shit beer, which is what Sixes is. It’s bottom shelf, practically on the floor beer for broke bastards, which Dante usually was. Sixes was the kinda piss he grew up on. Got his first sip from a foster mother who forgot to make dinner and well, he’s not hooked on this shit, but he’s used to it. Reaches for it every time he’s got enough scratch to get blackout wasted.

Right now, thanks to his rich bitch brother, he can gag on the good stuff, if he wants. He can toss it back and let it burn like a real good fuck.

Vergil’s got a wine fridge, fancy fucking thing for his fancy fucking wine. Dante can steal a bottle from that if he wants, and Vergil will complain and bitch, but he won’t stop him. Or, if he doesn’t want wine, he can go find the nearest abandoned liquor store and drink his liver dead.

Dante can do either of those things. He reaches over, pries Verge’s fingers away from his own beer and downs half of that instead.

“Yes? Maybe? I don’t know Vergil,” Kat sighs, picking at the label, tugging at her hair. Dante watches her droop forward, ready to catch her again, but Verge’s already there. Fingers on her shoulder, just barely touching, and pushes her back in her seat.

The baby blue latex just about glows in the grimy darkness of Rev’s and Dante wants to ask. He’s never seen Vergil without those, not once, and there’s gotta be a story behind them. But, Dante doesn’t ask, he finishes Verge’s beer instead.

Behind the bar Rev’s looking at them, out the corner of his eye like Dante doesn’t notice that shit. He’s got questions too; about what kinda shit Dante’s got himself into this time and who these two are. And hey, why was he on the news getting called a terrorist? And the guy in his lap, looks awfully like that cult leader the police were looking for too, what fucking gives _Tony_?

“Surely you must’ve had some faith in me?” Vergil’s saying, somewhere between serious and teasing but Kat’s big, scared eyes and furrowed up brows probably don’t hear it. She’s officially moved from tipsy to melancholy and Dante’s feeling…good. Still not drunk, takes more to get there these days, but he’s good.

And his priss brother who refuses to touch anything in this place and won’t drink the shit beer, is making jokes. So he figures Verge must be good too.

“He’s joking,” Dante says before Kat can start spluttering apologies or excuses or whatever. She’s got an unhealthy obsession with apologising to Vergil for things she probably shouldn’t. Sorry for getting shot, sorry for not being more help during the fight, sorry for being a liability.

She doesn’t even realise she’s doing it most of the time, Dante can tell. Vergil realises sometimes, when his head cocks to the side and his eyes dart over to Kat, he realises what she’s doing, but he never says anything. And yeah, yeah, Dante knows there’s baggage there that he’ll never know about and they know each other better than he ever will, but it’s just kinda…weird.

Strange? Eh, something like that. It’s uncomfortable standing by while they do their weird song and dance and not knowing where to fit himself in.

Like now. Kat’s wide eyes narrow, go from scared to confused and her lips curve down in a pout that’s downright cute. Verge rolls his eyes, huffs a breath, lets go of Dante’s shoulder and shifts that grip to his nape, latex warm on his skin.

“Of course, I am,” Vergil murmurs, sharing a look with Kat that Dante doesn’t understand, and she’s laughing now. Great?

He doesn’t get it, like at all. Kat starts laughing for no reason he can see, doubling over to clutch at her stomach and Vergil grins at him, all smug and prissy. And fuck that. Fuck them and their inside jokes.

He gets Verge’s arm unhooked and himself out of the booth in one smooth move. Sliding free like he’s done a million times. And, cause he’s an asshole like that, he lifts Verge just enough to dump him half on the tabletop.

“Dante!” Vergil squawks, scrambling to catch himself.

And Kat laughs harder.

“Dante!” Vergil whines when his hand slaps down on the sticky table and the latex gets stuck.

And Dante grins as he heads to the bar for more shitty Sixes.

* * *

The storm blowing in is frigid. Ice in my lungs, a twitch in my fingers. To breathe fire and burn the world down. To curl around a smooth handle and cut it all to pieces. What fire and what handle though?

There's clouds piling on the horizon, crashing into each other. Bumper to bumper ice water disaster. There's...there's death on the wind? No, it's only a little bit like dying and a little bit like living and it's so tempting.

To climb up onto the banister and lean into it. Spread my arms wide and stand against the plucking, stroking breeze. To jump out into nothing and fall-fall down-down into something that's there. Right fucking there. So fucking close.

It's mine, isn't it? My birth right and my...and something that's mine that I don't have. Someone? Yes someone.

He's late night blasphemy and star fire filth. He's out there, somewhere, hidden away from me but not for long. He's mine, I'll get him back soon, because he's mine.

And he'll—we'll... ** _we'll_** be the ice on the wind. We'll be terrible and wonderful and together and forever.

* * *

They get home when the sky's just past perfect dark and the empty streets lose their bite. Dante carrying Kat hooked on his hip, Vergil holding him steady by the elbow. Still not drunk bro.

“Watch your step,” Vergil says anyway, holding the apartment door open for him. His pretty, perfect brother is still painfully sober and that should be annoying right? Should make him want to un-pretty up that face that's the spitting image of his except for the cold eyes and kept in check anger and the Vergil-ness of it all.

Dante, son of nobody, would’ve. _Tony_ would’ve. Maybe he should, just to make sure he’s still himself and not some suave king slayer stuffed into a Dante suit. That nobody scooped out his guts and his gore and slipped something a little too wholesome inside. Can’t have that. He’s just an asshole punk kid with a chip on his shoulder after all.

And Vergil’s right there. Perfect, little brother Vergil. All helpful and shit. Dante’s seen him bruised and burnt and bleeding, and it’s a good look on him. Scratches off all that always-in-control shit and gets him closer to Dante’s level. They’re brothers, they should be on the level, he thinks.

An uppercut to clack those perfect teeth together and bruise that nice jaw. Block Yamato with Ivory, catch the blade on her butt, and fire one neat and sweet right past Vergil’s ear. Make that baby ring and ding-ding, let the games begin.

“Thanks,” Dante mumbles instead. Hiking Kat higher up instead, making sure her lolling head doesn’t fall off his shoulder.

He’s buzzed, feeling good, feeling loose, but he still walks a perfect line into the apartment without tripping on the edge of the carpet. Through the dark living room where there’s a clock ticking half-four and all the way to Kat’s room, stopping outside the closed door. He’s buzzed and fuzzed and takes maybe a second longer than normal to figure out how to switch his grip to reach for the knob but then it doesn’t matter.

Then there’s Vergil, again, opening it for him with a quiet hum and warm latex fingers brushing the back of his wrist. Verge doesn’t come in with him, stands in the doorway waiting instead, while Dante dumps Kat on the bed. And she’s all the way passed out, two whole bottles in her was a bottle and a half too much but he wasn’t gonna deny her.

She’s always too high strung, a couple drinks’d do her good maybe, let her get a good sleep for once probably. He thinks about getting her out of her rumpled clothes, to make her more comfortable, but his throat tightens up and his fingers twitch and nah, **_no_**. Kat’s fine in her clothes and they’ll wash those sheets tomorrow anyhow.

“G’night, Kat,” he whispers into the quiet, stroking the jut of her knuckles, then he’s backing out, leaving her be and giving her back her space. She’s too dead to the world to realise he was ever in it but it’s important to him, important to her.

They’ve got a few too many things in common, know the demons in the same carnal ways. He fought back with fists and knives and blood and rage; she found Vergil.

And then…what? They started the Order together, her and Vergil, but neither of them have ever told him how. They got all these people working with them, believing them, but Dante doesn’t get why. Why did people believe them? Why didn’t those people ever believe _him_?

Why couldn’t they…fuck it, doesn’t matter. None of it matters, it’s done and dead now, and Dante shakes that out of his head.

“It’s late, we should get some rest,” Vergil says, when Dante’s in the living room again, standing in his own doorway now.

The earliest morning gloom seeping through the walls— _settling in his bones_ —does interesting things to Vergil. Washes out his already pale skin til he’s cigarette ash and smoke, bleaches his hair to the bone, and makes his eyes stand out like a match flicker in the dark. Does interesting things to the shadows too, makes them bigger, longer, thicker, gives them some weight that’s pressing down on Dante’s shoulders and dragging his feet across the carpet.

Vergil is there, standing in the dark, outlined by the doorframe like a fucking stain-glass Adonis. Another gloom, another set of shadows, but same Vergil. Same Dante too. Watching his brother from across a room, taking in all those little details, and desperately wanting to touch. Dante wants to reach for him, to wrap himself in his brother’s warmth and _breathe_ for a sec. Like that first night.

But this isn’t that first night. This is a month into the long-con and there’s no excuse. Dante could reach for Vergil, he most definitely could, and he’d probably cut himself on those perfect stain-glass edges. He could reach but he’d probably bleed out on the floor. Fuck up the nice carpet.

His hands stay by his side.

“I…had a good time, thank you Dante,” Vergil says, after a while. He tips his head, dips it in a nod, and it does weird things to the shadows hanging onto his every breath. Scatters them like smoke, splats them like ink; builds up a world and sends it crashing down too.

Dante squints and he…huh. Almost looks like Verge’s got horns. Delicate shadow things standing all sharp against his colourless hair, ending in the wickedest points. Pretty. Then Vergil’s head cocks and Dante blinks, and the shadows drip-drop off again; no horns, no demon, just Vergil.

“Yeah well, you deserved it, you did great,” Dante shrugs, brushing off the compliment before it settles and drape all awkward.

Kat’s always apologising and Vergil’s always complimenting, and Dante doesn’t know how to fit between them. They’ve got issues, who fucking doesn’t? Kat’s been through the system and knows just how nasty devils can get. Vergil had to learn two different worlds all on his own, run an anarchist outfit, search for a lost brother, _and_ stay off Mundus’ radar.

Dante…well, he’s been through the shit too. Almost like Kat, but without the outside help, and almost like Vergil, except he kept getting found and didn’t know a thing about himself. They’re quite the trio. All fucked up, in their own special ways, and just jagged enough to catch on each other’s edges without breaking something.

And now Kat’s asleep and Vergil should be too, but Dante can tell his brother wants something. Fuck, _Dante_ wants something. But the two of them, they’re too stubborn and their prides are too big; neither of ‘em’ll be the first one to ask.

So, Vergil stands in the doorway and Dante leans against the wall. He doesn’t make a move to go to his own bedroom, even though the door is right there, right next to Vergil’s. He should. He didn’t drink enough for a hangover, but he’s got a feeling tomorrow-today’s gonna be packed and he should snatch as much sleep as he can. But he doesn’t.

The clock ticks on towards five and they stare at each other, listening to each other breathe. A month hasn’t been enough, nowhere near enough to make up for the twelve years they missed out on. And every tock-tick-tock is another second they’re not getting, even though they’re staring right fucking at each other. Dante _hates_ it.

“How big’s your bed?” he asks as the hour hand clicks into place.

“King sized,” Vergil says without missing a beat.

“Wow, fancy,” he sneers, letting his teeth shine in the dark, “mine’s just a double.”

Which is the closest he’ll get to asking. He won’t ask, he can’t. His pride won’t let him and the stunted, half-feral kid locked up in his ribcage screams blue-murder when he so much as strings together a “ _can I please_ ”. Asking for shit never got him anywhere good in life so he doesn’t ask.

He implies and he suggests and he fucking takes whatever he wants, no fucking questions asked. Ain’t nobody ever asked _him_ before they took shit.

“Poor you,” Vergil teases, eyes a sharper blue than they were a second ago, “I guess I can share. It’ll count as my charitable act of the year, helping the less fortunate.”

Is probably the closest Verge’ll get to not being a complete asshole. Dante’s very proud of his little brother, they grow up so fast.

By the time the second hand starts sliding, Dante’s already across the room and Vergil’s digging through his closet for extra pillows and blankets. Neither of them think about taking the ones from Dante’s bed, just next door. That’s too far and too much like a permanent thing and this isn’t gonna be a permanent thing.

They’re grown men, they don’t need to sleep in the same bed because they miss each other. Seriously, that’d just be sad. Dante’s just…seeing how the other half lives for a night. Curling into his brother’s space and _breathing_.

They’re both dead to the world before the second hand clicks into place.

* * *

“Fuck. Fuck. **_Fuck!_** ”

Hissed between your teeth as steady as a clock.

“God fucking. Fuck!”

Tock-tick-tock.

Steady but unbalanced, little love.

Out. Of place. And out of. Your mind.

With frustration and anger and _rage_.

“Unacceptable! Disgusti— _Foolish_!”

You spit that word like it’s shit on your tongue, scraping it off with teeth too blunt and spraying it with bloody spittle. Are you baptising your failure with blood and rage, little love?

How…uncouth.

Oh, but you don’t care about cool headed graciousness. Not right now and not right here sitting in eye of your failure. It should’ve worked, shouldn’t it?

You followed the rules and found the tools, so yes, it _should_ have worked but look around you. Look at the scattered pages and burnt black tiles, look at the rorschachs blotted into the walls in ink and in blood. Your blood, so precious, little love, spilt for nothing.

When have you been anything less than immaculate on first try? When have you ever _failed_?

“ ** _Foolish!”_** you shriek-snarl-spit, pounding your fist on the floor, cracking the tile and your bone.

Does the pain help, little love? Hairline fractures and borderline faults. They’re healing already, sealing and healing and it’s only making everything worse. You don’t want to be fine and hale and hearty, do you little love?

No, no, you want chaos, destruction, to look as much a failure as you are. Well. Why not ease a sliver of a splinter into those breaks and widen them out? Why not crack those bones open, split them, rip them, and fish the jagged pieces out of the ruin of your flesh?

Why not jam that worthless devil’s steel dagger into your gut and _twist_? Paint this whole room red, paint it blue, paint it bla—

* * *

When he lived in foster homes, after the orphanage kicked him out for killing Sister Maggie, sleep was a luxury. Sleep was what he snatched in the darkest hours of the night in the darkest corners of his shared bedrooms. Always away from the other kids because he never trusted those shits— _except when he was twelve and so-so desperate and lonely—_ and refused to be have his back exposed.

When he got old enough that the system just didn’t give a shit when he finally left, sleep was in alleyways, back against rough walls. It was under overpasses, stuck in the pokey little corners the other homeless people couldn’t fit into, which was fine, easier to stay safe. And if he got stuck sometimes, jammed between slabs of concrete and on the edge of panic, then that was all part of the game.

When he aged up enough to lose some of the babyface and learn how to pull a trigger just right, hit that sweet spot in between aim-shoot-reload-repeat, sleep was on couches. In crack dens, waiting for the boys to whip up a new batch of whatever the fuck and send him out. He’d steal a piece of sleep on a shitty couch with shitty springs, or he’d find an inch of not so dirty floor.

In this house or that house, waiting to get sent out again and happy to hang around someplace the rain couldn’t soak him through. Sometimes, when they slammed the door in his face and locked it up tight, he’d find some horny fuck and let them take him home. Sleep’d be in their bed, licked up greedily after they shot their load and passed the fuck out. They always kicked him out in the morning but who gave a shit about that? A few hours was all he asked for and a few hours was what he usually got.

For the last months, a few before this, sleep’s been in a quiet corner on an actual mattress with his brother watching his back. Order HQ hadn’t been the most glamourous place, but they had space for sleeping and eating, even for fucking; probably not Vergil approved but shh. Dante could sleep there, get a whole six~seven hours if he was a good boy.

Now sleep’s here, and the apartment’s not the most glamourous either, even with all Verge’s fancy appliances and cash stashed everywhere. There's sigils cut into the walls, burned into doors. Floors creak like a scream with the kinda magic Vergil forced into them and the windows are all spelled unbreakable. He's got no idea why but that turned the glass stale, light's always old gold these days.

So yeah, not glamourous but Dante never asked for five stars. He just wants a few hours to close his eyes and play dead to the world. And Vergil, his go-getter, problem-solver brother, is always happy to let him have that.

The video hits the web ten o’night their time. They spend a few hours drinking and forgetting the world outside of a shitty bar in Belleview. Then back home to sleep the night off and give the video time to sink into the world and fester.

When Vergil actually let him on the massive king-sized bed that has no god damn reason being that big, Dante wasn’t really sure what to do, or say. Sharing space was easy, never had much of it, but sleeping next to something not human? Made his blood prickle, liquid silver and uneasy.

He’d slept with Vergil before, on that tiny fucking bunk after the fight, but that was different. That was them celebrating their alived-ness with some rest before they fell over. This was…different. It was Dante laying down board straight, back to the mattress because Vergil’s bed wasn’t shoved up against a wall.

Was him not knowing where to put his hands or shove his legs and breathing whisper quiet cause he couldn't break that pressing down, squeezing him silence. And of course Vergil knew what to fucking do. Drag him in for a hug that settled the judder under his ribs, chest to back with a pillow shoved into his arms.

Them sleeping together was Dante blacking the fuck out for hours and hours and hours and getting the _best_ fucking sleep of his life.

“New report from Li Jun, they’re storming Zhongnanhai,” Kat’s saying, voice pitched down, but there’s no hiding that excited tremble.

She’s there, right there, sitting cross legged by Vergil’s desk. Dante can hear the _bup-bup-budup_ of her excited heart and the _cree-eek!_ of the chair as she rocks happily. She does that, when she’s happy, can’t keep still like all the emotions are zinging in her muscles and moving them for her.

“Excellent, things have stalled on Nikolai’s end, but they are engaged with the Behemoth,” Vergil mumbles, contemplative or whatever. He’s thinking thoughts a hundred miles a hour but his body's dead still. Nothing moving ‘cept his fingers across keys, no sounds ‘cept soft, shushing breaths.

Dante doesn’t know if Vergil’s happy or disappointed or what, he’s _that_ flat. Well, might have something to do with how he refuses to open his eyes and join in on the Order-Nerd meeting, but he’ll say it’s Vergil’s flatness. _He’s_ got his face firmly smushed into a pillow where it’s nice and dark, and he’s not turning over until Vergil specifically asks him to.

He’s happy to just lie there and listen and not contribute anything at all, because what could he really add? Verge and Kat’ve been reading reports and clicking keys and talking about places and people Dante doesn’t know for a good two hours now. Who’s revolting and who’s fighting and who’s still not ready yet.

All of it’s fallout from their video last night, Dante knows that much, but whether it’s good or bad, he can’t really say. Millions of people saw that video, but the reactions are mixed. Which ain’t too different from how the Order’s always been treated, if Dante’s remembering right.

Fuck, he never did care about the Order. Couple a nutjobs who got a lil too close to the truth and thought they could change the world. Right.

He used to see them on tv, hear people muttering about them, but they weren’t really a priority. Nothing really was back then. His life just used to be a toss-up between drinking, fighting, and fucking, and not one thing else.

“Rebecca’s moving onto phase 3, going dark in a half-hour,” Kat says, and so it goes.

Dante drowses in and out of sleep as the sun creeps lower and lower. He can feel it, _could_ always feel it and hey, is that a Nephilim thing? Keeping time with the sun, always knowing when and where and feeling it beating down on the back of his neck no matter what?

He should ask Vergil one of these days. Maybe it’s an angel thing, even if he doesn’t feel too connected to that side.

“Jackson’s requested backup, Dexter and Thornton are closest, but Ari’s already done. Should I send her instead?”

“Have Liatris and Maddox reported in yet? We need them for the next leg of the UK team.”

“Robin and Jules still haven’t gotten past the firewall, I think we should pull them back Vergil, it’s too much of a risk.”

“We lost Shiva and Prem, redirect Ajay to their location for recovery… ** _now_** Kat.”

“Shit…shit! The military got called in. Brasília’s going down fast, what do we do?”

“Zepar breached the bunker, he’ll take the shot before the address.”

Dante listens to them. Talking back and forth. Talking to each other, around each other, over. Kat and Vergil, Vergil and Kat. Vergil sits up against the headboard, readjusting himself every half hour; crossing his legs, uncrossing, shifting his laptop, and back again. Sometimes, when the reports aren’t good, he reaches up to fiddle with his amulet.

Sometimes, when the reports are terrible, he reaches across for Dante’s lax hand and Dante gives Vergil an encouraging squeeze. Something to ground him, and remind him that big bro’s here, ready to help however Vergil asks. He’d say the words, but Vergil doesn’t want him to, not in front of Kat which Dante gets, kinda.

His brother’s a control freak. He’s always gotta have things _just_ so and God help anyone that messed with his balance. Right now, he’s the Head of the Order. Doesn’t matter that it’s just Kat and Dante here, people that don’t really give a shit whether he’s cool, calm, and collected or a spitting, hissing mess of alley cat anger.

Vergil’s doing this for himself, to keep himself steady and ready, and get through the planning.

So, Dante holds his brother’s hand like he almost remembers from the childhood he’s still forgetting, and Kat doesn’t have to know a single bit of it. Sometimes Vergil does it when the reports are good too, just reaches across for a quick squeeze cuz that’s his overflowing happy. Kat rocks and Vergil shares, with Dante.

At some point the reports start tapering off from rapid fire, gatling gun updates to something a lil more reasonable. Less Ivory, more Ebony. In between one murky dream and the next, Vergil starts to peel away his layers of unnatural calm. First the locked in place posture goes, shoulders slumping, spine curving, and Dante dreams of an endless sea falling away into forever.

Vergil cracks his neck and his wrists and rests the laptop on the bed, and Dante hears phantom gunfire rattling away in the distance. Verge shakes his shoulder, and Kat yawns, and Dante blinks away a haze of colour and sleep.

“We’re done,” Verge says, as Dante cracks his jaw around a yawn, “for now.”

And yeah, he knows it’s just for now. There’s always more to be doing, staging riots and hacking shit, and maybe, possibly assassinating the US president? Dante’s not sure about that last one, if that Zepar’s going after the US president or just the president of a company or something.

He should ask. That’s the kinda thing he should seriously ask about. He doesn’t.

“Time’s it?” he mumbles, even though he knows the sun’s still in the sky. Low in the sky, lazing through a golden afternoon that probably looks damn good.

“Just after five,” Kat pipes up from the desk, sounding tired now that the excitement’s run its course. Tired sure, but still happy. And when Dante turns bleary eyes on her, she’s actually smiling.

Verge is too, less overt, a lil more self-satisfied but Dante figures his brother deserves it. He just spent the better part of the day coordinating a global protest; it’s not to the whole “ _rise up and stand together, you’ve got nothing to lose but your chains_ ” stage but it’s a start. People saw the video, they watched, and they listened and they’re believing now cuz hey, demons are real and the Order was right.

What else’s the Order been right about?

“Eat yet?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know, as if Vergil’s left his side at all.

Dante grew up with walls to his back. Safety, comfort, security. He grew up with his back to the wall, and it’s hard for him to give that up. But not with Vergil. He trusts his brother, with his back, with his life; it’s easy as bleeding.

He catnapped a whole day away with his back to the world and his face in a pillow. If that’s not trust, he has no idea what is.

“Not yet,” Verge says, “got something in mind, brother?”

* * *

The house is dead, when he finds it again. The house is still rotting, still mourning, when he creeps through the haze of _something_ and stumbles across the threshold.

There’s; dirt scattered across the floor, soot on the walls, an inferno’s aftermath burning in the foundations.

There’s; blood splatter splatted on the ceiling where it happened, brittle feathers wafting in the breeze he brings, a scream echoing in his ears.

“ _Vergil!_ ”

There is Mother.

Red hair and red heart, that he sees through his trembling fingers.

Laughing mouth and gaping chest, that he remembers through a haze.

She was beautiful, that day. A snarl twisting her lips, a resolve shutting down her eyes. She had drawn them away, hadn’t she?

“ _Sparda! Sparda they’re here!”_

She leads the demons, calls Mundus from her children, and he watches her go. Her phantom, his memory; Mother. Down a hall, through a wall, and she’s gone. He’s alone again.

There’s a garden, as well. Overrun and forgotten in the back, hidden under vines and memory. Struggling through the thorns is hard, fighting past the realisation is harder. This really is—she really was—Mother.

And, in the garden, there is a tree. A lush tree, growing up-up into the heavens, the likes of which he can’t place. What kind of tree is it? Apple, plum, cherry, pomegranate, nectarine or berry?

He doesn’t know, but it was never for him to know.

“ _Stay **away** from me!_”

Her voice wavers and wafts on the wind, and he hears her again as he hunts through the underbrush. Because, hidden between the creeping-guarding vines and the broken-down wall that failed them, is a gravestone. A slab of marble as pure as grief that covers: an empty casket.

And he knows better. Better than to stand at her grave and weep, for she is not there. Better than to fall like a wire cut marionette and sob for a mother he can’t remember.

He knows, he knows, he knows, but he still waters her overgrown grave with salt-water sorrow. For the mother missing, for the years of longing for something already gone, for the life stolen.

He weeps until his eyes burn and his throat tears, and he roars his rage at the sky. At a suddenly monochrome world where there’s no colour—one colour, blue colour. Under his hands, under the marble. And she…she’s been calling him home.

* * *

After the video goes out, the days start to drag. Vergil and Kat get all caught up in directing the Order and Limbo City turns into a ghost town. Whatever humans were left clear the fuck out after Vergil’s video, and then it’s only demons out on the island.

Dante sighs, then snorts. Yeah, _just_ demons. Fun to fuck with and something to do at least. Cause there’s not much space for him in the whole _“coordinate a global rebellion from a bedroom_ ” operation. Hell, there wasn’t much space for him in the Order either.

Vergil was the fearless leader, gathering intel and allies and organizing everything within an inch of its life. Kat was the psychic go between, always keeping an eye on whatever Verge couldn’t, and running messages or supplies or whatever the fuck needed to get moved.

 _Dante_ was just the outsourced muscle. He was a lucky coincidence, found before Vergil could make his final move, or maybe he was purposefully left out of the loop until Vergil was ready to bring him in. Dante doesn’t know and he doesn’t really care. He was doing just fine on his own and he'll keep doing fine. Even if he's bored outta his skull right now.

He cracks his jaw on a lazy yawn and yeah, just fine. From the minute he woke up to some crazy chick banging on his door all the way to now, lounging on a rooftop under a clear blue sky and smoking bougie cigs. They’re black and gold and smoother than sex, and honestly, Dante’s feeling a lil spoiled. 

Vergil got these for him from who fucking knows where. Said he knew what cheap brands Dante liked from Kat’s pre-contact stakeouts and refused to have that shit stink up the apartment. Dante figures his brother just wanted to get rid of his own backlog.

A grin splits his face cause that's probably _exactly_ what Verge’s doing. Kat told him that Vergil used to chain smoke himself through something ridiculous like three packs a day. Holed up in Order HQ, stuck behind his screens, he'd smoke and smoke until the techs had running bets on when he'd smother himself.

Why'd he stop? Kat‘s got no idea, couldn't even pinpoint an exact day. One month Vergil smoked, next month he didn't, and didn’t even switch to something else. One month Verge went through three packs a day, next he’d carved sigils into the concrete and put latex gloves between him and the world.

Dante's not gonna lie, it's all fucking weird, but he used to think he was human. Even after he cut open his fucking chest with a demon sword just to see his beating heart.

... _fuck_ , why'd he ever think that'd prove he was human? If he was human, he’d’a been dead as shit.

Whatever. Him, Kat, Vergil, they're all fucked up, the other two’re just better at working through it and being good little anarchists. Dante’s the demonic one with a blood-crazed blood crave stuck in his gut, Kat’s the half mad witch with squirrel jizz hooked on her hip and a buzz in her head, and Vergil’s the angelic control freak with a sprimkle of God complex for taste.

What a sack’a whack jobs they are, they all deserve each other. Dante’s not complaining though, about Vergil and Kat or the smokes, shit’s good. He blows a couple smoke rings that get torn up by the wind, yeah, shit’s good.

And speaking of those sweet little hell raisers. Dante can hear them down in the apartment. Kat’s criss cross applesauce on Vergil’s bed with a half dozen laptops spread out in front her. Vergil’s by the desk, one laptop, a headset, and numb to the world.

If Dante closes his eyes to the nice, cloudless sky and listens hard, he can hear them shifting weight, shaking out fingers and typing, even the words Verge is muttering into the mic. According to his brother, they’re providing backup on an infiltration; messing with security cameras, giving directions, and instructions. Just like the first day after the video.

Some real spy shit is what Dante heard, they’re running undercover missions, heavy on the espionage. Kat hisses a breath through her teeth, hmm’s unhappily, and switches laptops with Vergil. The handoff is so clean and slick Dante almost doesn’t hear it, except for the creak of Vergil’s chair, except for the sigh of the mattress. Something’s not going according to perfect plan, but Dante knows they’ll figure it out, they always do. His brother and his…Kat.

Jesus. What are they? Friends? Yeah probably. More? Uh no, they haven’t done jack to be more, but friends is so tame. Did friends fight a demon queen and her freaky foetus for each other? Did friends save each other from demon kings then take down the fucker together?

Fuck, what was friendship anyway?

“Bullshit usually,” he mumbles, taking another drag and holding it longer than he should. Lets it swirl in his chest and scratch a little.

He’s Nephilim, always has been. So, in theory, there’s no should or shouldn’t with this shit. A little smoke’s not gonna kill him, and hey, maybe that’s why Vergil smoked his three packs a day. Just a little reminder. Something to keep it in his head while he fucked with Mundus’ whole operation.

Smoke starts to burn, caught in his throat like that, and his eyes prickle but he’s good. Dante’s just fine. Smoke won’t kill him, and hey, maybe he can throw himself in the river, sink back into the filth, and still be fine. Air, water, shouldn’t matter since he didn’t need ‘em.

He tips his head back, staring up-up into endless blue, and holds that breath.

Nephilim can die, have died. A lot, nearly all of ‘em. But they died from shit like getting their hearts ripped out, or their heads hacked off, or just plain chopped to meaty ribbons by a damn good sword. Reb snorts in the back of his head and yeah, Dante _knows_ Nephilim can die. Same as angels, same as demons, same as humans.

They’re just more durable. Water ain’t gonna drown them, smoke ain’t gonna choke them, and maybe fire can’t burn. Except no. Except it can.

Dante remembers it. Red and bloody bursting out of every window, thick and hot chasing him down the hall and right out the door. Flames’d licked his heels, blistered and burnt the skin a painful red. And, if he’d stayed, just sat down next to Eva and refused to go, would that’ve killed him?

Would he have burned like her? _Died_ like her—

A cough catches him by surprise. Dry and sharp. One spluttering gasp, two, and he’s hacking up smoke.

“F-fuck,” he wheezes, thumping his chest like that’ll do anything. It won’t and it doesn’t, the smoke’s still hiccupping past his lips, but he doesn’t stop.

 _Thump! Thump! Thump!_ Heavy hits that shake his throat and rattle his lungs around. _Thump! Thump! Thump!_ Till his chest’s aching from the smacking and he can breathe without the grating.

“What're you _doing_ , Tony?” he groans, sniffs, and flicks some ash off the edge of the roof.

Watches it fall too, between his dangling legs. Then he drops the nearly smoked out cig after it and bye-bye shining gold butt.

What _is_ he doing? Tony, Leon, Dante, which him’s him? Tony wouldn’t’a never wasted a pull like that, no way. But Tony would’a never been smoking bougie cigs in the first place. Wouldn’t’a got caught dead running with a rich-bitch college boy or playing house with some crazy chick. And that’s _exactly_ what he’s doing.

In between the demon killing and hell raising, he’s settling down into something domestic. Not a house with a family, but an apartment with his brother and a chick he’s not even fucking. Fuck, what even _is_ his life anymore?

He snorts as he picks another cig out of the fancy-schmancy case and snaps his fingers for a quick light. Cause that’s a thing he can do. A tiny lil bit of demon magic Verge taught him. Enough to pop the cherry and fill his lungs back up with some of the smoothest smoke.

What’s he doing? Keeping watch while his brother and his friend change the world. He did his part, killed the unkillable demon king, and now they’re doing theirs. Dante can’t fault them for that.

Downstairs he hears them switch out laptops again, but there’s no grumbling this time. They fixed whatever it was. Good for them. And Dante lays out on the roof, legs dangling, one arm stuck under his head so he can watch the sky float by. Takes a drag on his prissy cig, and watches the smoke curl away with the wind.

* * *

“So, I hear you’re in the market for some information,” is how it starts. With a charming smile and an appreciative once over. With a demon purring in the back of her throat and me forcing a polite nod.

Information, I need information. On demonologies and occultism and angelic hierarchies, if they’re available. Which they haven’t been. Not outside the city and not inside, not two states over or the other side of the country.

And now, because I can’t be satisfied elsewhere, I’m here. In the leopard’s den between her playful paws. She looks nothing like I was told she would, and _that_ is why I will suffer her attention. Because a rebellion can’t be built on hearsay and rumour, we cannot establish Order when we have no idea what true chaos is.

“And if I am?” a teasing taunt to keep her at bay and interested.

She stalks and prowls, is what I’ve heard, but now she’s still. As she contemplates me. What does she notice first? The carefully mussed hair or the pre-rumpled shirt? The dull brown contacts or subtle contour along my jaw and nose and cheekbones?

Because I cannot be myself here. Christopher Alderidge is not looking for demons, he can’t be, so instead Lady Haures will have a pitiful bit of scum in her lair. Browsing her shelves and getting caught in the corner where the light doesn’t reach, and no eye can see.

It’s almost impressive how smoothly she swoops in and breaks us apart from reality. Off into Limbo, myself and her.

“That could be very dangerous, little mouse,” she laughs, and the sound warbles around her. Shivers the leaves hanging above her head, now, warps the shadows falling across her face, now.

The eyes were right at least, savannah grass green and more inhuman than others of her ilk. Though, in Limbo, there’s less reason to hide what she is. Because Limbo is safe for demons, and Hell for humans, which is what I’m supposed to be. But I can’t play that game right now.

Hysteria does not a good business partner make.

“Dangerous for _who_?” I hum, and let Yamato come to me. Appear in my hand and speak the threat I don’t have to. Haures’ right coloured eyes dilate, widen, then narrow and glare. She knows _whose_ sword and _whose_ son, so she knows she’s had.

And she could run. Take off across her savannah hellhole, leave me in her freshly abandoned den, but that would only make this worse. Nothing in this world or the next can hide from Yamato, not after her Master’s scented them. So Haures could run but she wouldn’t get far, and she wouldn’t get the choice of giving me the information I want then.

She would get cut down. Sliced to pieces. Legs lopped off then arms, and guts spilling out until she talked. She knows that, I know she knows that. She can see it on my face, in this self-satisfied smile and wrong brown eyes.

What was the point if I was going to show myself then? Threaten with something so distinctive? Appearances. For the humans in her shop, and the demons lounging near. For Dante, who I haven’t found yet, who’s still hidden from me, but not for long. And in the meantime, I can’t have his face be seen in a place like this, by demons like this who might track him down before I do.

“What do you want to know, son of Sparda?” Haures snarls, tail lashing, eyes flashing, but there’s nowhere to go. We’re back into a corner, where no eye can see.

“Tell me about the war.”

* * *

Dante knows Vergil has demon…allies, ones who thought Mundus was a sack of shit and wanted the bitch gone just as much as they did. Rea’s one, a marquis or something, who’s got eyes everywhere and ears everywhere else. There’s uh Zepar, a duke maybe and no relation to Vepar, who’s gonna kill a president.

There’s one that’s an earl, another duke or maybe it’s a duchess, and a marchioness? Dante thinks but he’s not sure because there’s the ones Vergil has on his side, the ones he wants on his side, and the ones he’s looking for. Earls, Marquises, Dukes, Princes, Presidents, Dante’s never known so many people and it’s hard keeping it all straight in his head. No matter how many helpful diagrams Vergil pulls up on his laptop. 

But yeah, he thinks it’s fair to say Vergil’s got a couple demon lords and lackies on his side from the Order-anarchy days. Not enough to stage a coup or anything, but he’s looking to change that, and hey, what d’ya know all those nobles and nasties wanna get in Verge’s pants now. Cause woah, turns out Sparda’s bastard wasn’t just talk, he’s got the inches to back up his fuck.

And _that_ is why Dante’s drinking vodka in a fancy penthouse while his brother schmoozes…

“Seere, Demon Prince of the Night,” the smugly smiling bastard introduced himself, with an outstretched hand and drooping silver eyes.

Yeah, Demon Prince of the Night. Dante rolls his eyes, again, and knocks back a drink that goes down way too smooth.

The devil, Seere, reminds him of a snake. Sleek, smooth, and just real fucking weird. He also reminds Dante of Rea, something that doesn’t belong and is so fucking out of place it’s unsettling. And he’s kinda wondering if Sparda was like that too.

Their dad was a demon knight and knights were nobility, right? So, was Sparda as unsettling as Seere?

Dante couldn’t say he remembered; dark hair and a deep voice, maybe green eyes? Yeah, sounds about right, matches that portrait at the house, but it doesn’t really tell him much. Like, did Dad have snake eyes that doubled over like Seere’s? Two slitted snake pupils doubling into four and looking at: the wall, Vergil’s face, Dante’s reflection, the door, before settling back into two?

Did Dad move the same too smooth way? Like he had too many bones stuffed under his skin. Dante doesn’t know. He’d like to say no because Sparda wasn’t a fucking snake, but he can’t be sure. Fuck, what the hell _was_ Dad?

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” Seere says and Dante wonders if Vergil hears the hiss hiding under that calm voice. He wonders if Kat would, and if maybe that’s why Verge didn’t bring her with them.

Too dangerous to bring a vulnerable human around a devil like Seere? Probably. Besides, somebody had to keep an eye on the world.

“We’ve had missteps, yes, but we’re also on the brink of something truly incredible,” Vergil says just as calm. Nothing like the excited, maybe a little manic, mess Dante knows his brother can be. Nah, this is the head of the Order negotiating with a potential ally, and Dante smiles at his reflection.

So, what’re they doing on top of the world with a demon prince? Well, as Vergil explained it, they’re recruiting. They’ve got a couple of lords and ladies that hated Mundus on their side already, the ones who got their titles taken away for being naughty. But that’s not enough, according to Verge, they need _more_.

If they’re gonna keep asses outta the throne, they need support. Preferably the support of demons with some power, not like Vepar or Rea, someone that Mundus never stripped down and tossed out. Prince Seere fits the bill, apparently, and he’s willing to talk so that’s a plus.

Vergil was happy enough to agree to a meeting in Seere’s penthouse smackdab in the ruin of downtown Limbo City. Dante can see some stygians running around down there. Vergil was so willing to meet, he cut a portal right from the hallway outside the apartment to this hotel. The Avalon.

In Dante’s opinion, Seere ain’t shit. He’s a pretty face with fancy words and the faintest hint of devilish bullshit clinging to his lips. He’s the executive type, basically, and Dante knows all about those. Oh yeah, they want a good time and a good fuck that won’t mouth off or charge much, just a nice wet hole that’ll be gone by morning.

Everything in here screams rich bitch; the pretentious paintings on the white walls, the dark wood floors, the marble countertops, and never forget the twenty-foot glass wall. Before, this view would’a been something else. Standing up top between all the other skyscrapers, looking around at the most famous skyline in the world at that place between blue-toned evening and full on night. It’s still something else.

Verge told him this place used to be a popular demon spot, somewhere for all the new arrivals to rest up and get used to human physics. The Avalon. It was a joke apparently, that Dante didn’t get but now he thinks he sees it. Cause this place, this fancy, rich-bitch hotel with the larger than life view and richer than God accommodations is a post-apocalyptic _joke_.

What’s the fucking point of a view like this when the whole world’s a smouldering wreck? What’s the fucking _point_ of pretending to be something neat and nice when Dante can see the fucking scales creeping up the side of a too pale neck?

White base, silver glimmer, it’s like the body Verge showed him in Devils. A bloated globster covered in toxic green scales. Except. Seere doesn’t make Dante think of water or a pressure so tight it crinkles his bones.

 _Seere_ makes him think about overgrown gardens, breaking past careful cultivation and scrambling out across dusty stone, eating up every bit of sunlight. Those scales were made to glitter under a baking hot sun and hide between shifting shadows. So, it’s too bad they’re inside under soft mood lighting and hemmed in humanity.

Waste of effort in his opinion. Dante’d prefer if they were out in some left-to-go-wild garden, because here, in this penthouse, Seere’s too outta place. He sets Dante’s teeth on edge, makes him wanna smash the glass, grab Verge, and jump out the fucking window.

He doesn’t do that because this is _important_ , but the girls are tucked into the small of his back and Reb’s just a call away. Just in case.

“I can see that,” Seere hums, leaning closer to Vergil, smiling sharper at Vergil.

His fingers wanna twitch around something that’s not there, Reb’s handle or Seere’s throat, they’re not picky. He doesn’t let them so much as tremble. Because Seere’s watching Dante just as much as Dante’s watching _him_.

Seere can probably see the “ _fuck you_ ” in his eyes, taste it in the air or whatever freaky shit snakes do. And, as much as Dante’d like to tie the fucker in knots, he doesn’t. He chucks his empty glass on a couch instead and splays his fingers on the window to keep them preoccupied.

“And? Have we impressed you, Your Highness?” Vergil asks, laying it on thick. Moving with Seere, drifting closer as if he can’t help himself, while Dante keeps his back to them.

He’s the muscle, here to look intimidating while Vergil talks his way into another bit of angel info and make sure his brother doesn’t get fucked over. Dante’s not supposed to speak up or point out all the nasty little bits he keeps noticing. Not that Verge told him that, but Dante’s smart enough to figure it out. He saw who Seere looked at first and which one of them he invited inside by name. Vergil’s the one on his level, Dante’s not, and that’s fine.

He’s used to getting ignored and underestimated. Oh Dante’s so dumb, probably can’t even read. Oh Dante’s just a punk ass shit, he’s got no idea what concealed runes look like or why there’s one over the door. Too bad they don’t need doors to get away if shit goes sour.

“You most certainly have, _Vergil_.”

His brother briefed him on all that shit, and even if he ain’t great at remembering names and titles, he knows _why_ Seere’s important. The snide son of a bitch is the only demon prince that ever used to slink out of the pit, and Vergil’s finally figured out why. Can’t get to Heaven from Hell, gotta scramble across no man’s land first.

Seere used to come out a lot, then Mundus took over and he stopped, and now he’s back again. Verge thought it was about taking over, at first, but then time passed and that didn’t happen, so bro’s got another theory. And, going off that theory, Vergil wants Seere on their side so bad it’s almost ridiculous.

“But I’m not the one you have to impress,” Seere sneers. Four eyes meeting Dante’s in the reflection. Two _winking_ at him.

“What?”

“ _What?_ ”

‘s a fucking echo, Dante and Vergil, growling in sync, and shit flips on a dime.

Vergil kicks out, stands up so fast it topples his chair, while Dante’s turning with Rebellion already in hand. And he catches the quickest flicker of…something in Seere’s doubled up eyes before it’s back to smug satisfaction. Back to looking at Vergil with open amusement.

Vergil sees whatever it is, maybe even recognises it, cause he’s drawing Yamato before Dante can stalk over. Cause he’s levelling her at Seere’s throat with the same twisted-angry expression as when he slid her up between Mundus’ ribs.

_‘Leave my brother alone!’_

Now she’s digging into Seere’s throat, tip pressed just above the jugular hard enough that it can’t be comfortable. Almost enough to cut, definitely enough to be a threat.

Dante’s heart is pounding, adrenaline’s pumping, and he’s running across the room to back up his brother. Two seconds and he’s there, at Seere’s back with Reb levelled at the fucker’s ribs. Verg’s already got the front.

“Did you really think I came all this way for a liminal tear, Vergil?” Seere laughs, slick and quick, and hard enough that it throws him forward. Right into Yamato, and what the fuck?

The sick shit doesn’t seem to care that he’s slicing his own throat on Yamato’s point. Fuck, it’s actually riling him. Laughing louder, wilder, and the sound’s hanging in the air, buzzing.

Something’s wrong, something’s so wrong, but Dante doesn’t know what. Vergil’s snarling, eyes narrowed, and he’s mad-mad-mad but he’s not telling Dante anything. At least look at him, but no, nothing. Seere’s still laughing, dying down to chuckles, and Dante digs Rebellion in. Cuts right through the stupid silk shirt and into the skin between the fucker’s ribs. 

Nowhere for the bitch to go now. Caught between two Nephilim and a hard place, but the Seere’s still looking pleased as shit. He’s snickering to himself, and it’s a drawn out hiss of a noise, like a sword at his throat and a sword at his back is exactly how he wanted the night to end.

Then, because the shit’s not weird enough, Seere reaches up and drags his hand along Yamato’s edge, fucking slits his fingers open on her.

What the **_fuck_**?

Dante tries, and fails, to catch Vergil’s eye again. Should he just kill the freak? Shove Rebellion right up between the ribs and cut out the fucker’s heart or what? Vergil doesn’t catch his eye.

“Why then, Your Highness?” and Dante’s never heard his brother’s voice sound like that either. Never had it bounce inside his skull or rattle his bones, like a scream that never ends, like a roar that never stops.

He doesn’t seem to care that Seere’s blood is slicking Yamato’s blade. Or that there’s the barest hint of smoke seeping under the doors, through the hardwood floor, but there’s no fire. Dante refuses to take his eyes off Seere’s silver-blond head to look around but he can’t hear roaring flames, or feel the heat, so where’s that smoke from?

And Vergil doesn’t seem to notice at all. He’s only got eyes for Seere. Cold blue, hard blue, cutting into Seere’s fucking face blue.

“Is there anything _you_ wouldn’t do for _your_ twin?” Seere asks in a voice that’s too sincere for the kind of snake Seere is. And the smoke’s getting thicker, sandpaper on his throat. Where the _fuck_ is it coming from?

Dante won’t take his eyes off Seere, he won’t, but in his peripherals there’s smoke. And creeping up the back of Seere’s neck, there’s scales. Silver-white and coating his skin.

“What are you here for?” Vergil snarls, and he wants to shove Yamato through Seere’s throat, Dante _knows_ he does. Verge might be snarling and growling and looking nothing like he’s seen from his brother, but Dante recognises that twitch under the stretch of baby blue latex.

The jumping wrist tendons; Verge’s just barely holding himself back from killing this fucker. And hey, Dante’s right there with him, but Seere’s got information they need. He, supposedly, knows how to get to Heaven, or open up the liminal place for them at the very least. That’s what Vergil figured out from Rea’s double-dealing, doubletalk.

Seere’s the Prince with the knowledge, the one who can come and go wherever the fuck he wants. But not under Mundus. So, Seere coming back and coming back _now_ , it pretty much proves Verge _right_.

“ _Who_ am I here for, Vergil,” Seere corrects, letting go of Yamato and…shattering.

Fucking shattering into pieces like a fucking glass sculpture stuffed with fucking c4.

“What the fuck—”

And the world explodes in green-green-green.

And they’re falling-falling-falling.

* * *

There’s blood, of course there’s blood. If there wasn’t blood, there’d be a reason to worry, but the worry’s already here, isn’t it? Is, isn’t, is?

...there's blood.

Red and wet and _hot_. Never thought it’d be this hot but there’s so much of it and what did the book say? Hands and heads bleed and bled—no, they bled a lot, that’s what the book said.

Hmm, maybe shouldn’t have cut so deep on the first try. What would moth— ** _No_**. Seraphina is not and never was mother. Not to the children she couldn’t have and not to the one she adopted.

Sparda’s spell is gone now, there’s no reason to forget now. So Seraphina is not mother and Christopher gone. Christoper Alderidge, son of Seraphina and Dominic. He’s not dead, he’s just…gone. Like Eva, mother, mom. She was everything, she was…everything.

Seraphina could never hope to compare. And she could never hope to understand. About this, about the demons, or the Order. She’s too small minded and set in her ways. She’s repulsive compared to what could have been.

…ugh, there’s too much blood here, slicking the tile, spotting the porcelain. Can’t think properly with all this fucking clutter and this fucking pain. Is it a lot? Objectively no. There are worse pains than a sliced up, cut up, fucked up face. Worse pains and worse things.

Like death. What’s the murder toll? Four and twenty demons staring with dead eyes. When the eyes were opened, the Nephilim started to swing—

“Disgusting.”

Utterly disgusting. Stretching the skin, re-splitting the cut and watching it bleed-bleed-bleed some more. Why? Why not?

In for a morbid penny, in for a bloody pound of flesh.

Hmm, there’s blood, so much of it but wipe that away, pull the cut wide-wider, and there’s no white meat to be seen. Not this time. Just dark-pink muscle stitching back together. Threads of muscle and fat stitching itself back together until there’s just a scar. Ropey and uneven, hot pink and inflamed red.

Until— _lean forward to get as close as possible to the mirror, wipe the blood away to get a good look_ —there’s nothing. 

Smooth skin, fair and unblemished. No proof left to prove what ever happened; except for the blood, except for the sword.

The sword…Yamato? Is that her name?

 _'Yes_.'

Yes, that's her name. She's glad to...to be here. She's missed being used and longed for the taste of blood, all those years hidden away. She’s glad Eva’s child found her, she was beginning to think it wouldn’t happen, but what a good little Nephilim. Found her. Fed her. All good, so very good.

“What is this?” a pale breath to fog up the glass and pale fingers to poke and prod at a perfectly healed cheek. In the place where she sliced the flesh to the bone with barely a whisper.

This is...proof. The proof torn out of the old books. The proof beaten out of old demons. The proof that Christopher Alderidge is not real. Never was real. Just smoke, mirrors, secrecy.

A silver lie made up to protect something else. Something else that was—that _is_ worth more than this wretched earth’s weight in gold.

 _'Yes._ '

And what now? Where to go from here? Storm Mundus’ castle? Hack the Hell gate to pieces?

Find Dante?

_‘Not yet, little Nephilim.’_

Yes of course, not yet. There’s planning to do. So much to do…a bathroom to clean. Fuck, there’s so much to clean. But, but first, what can it hurt to go a little further? A little deeper?

_'Nothing.'_

Right, Yamato’s right. There's no harm, no danger, so why not experiment a little? 

This time don’t look away while it happens. Keep those cold blue eyes wide open and stare down the reflection.

Can’t see it perfectly, because of the blood smears. Can’t think properly, because of the blood haze. But that’s fine. Just line her straight blade with the straight edge of a cheek bone, there perfect. Let her rest against the soft meat, press her close like a lover, and breathe— _look at the reflection’s too wide eyes_ —and jerk to the left.

Cut right through, straight through— _breathe out—_ and fight that reflexive gasp. It’s hard enough to rattle ribs and shatter a heart so no, don’t let it edge past pressed lips. Stare at blown wide eyes instead. At the ring of cold blue and the black hole in the middle— _and trembling lips_ —then why not make it a little worse?

Why not reach up with cold-numb fingers and pull down on that slit skin? Get a good look at that white meat— _shocked meat_ —and how she’s cut to the bone, into the bone. She cut so quick and clean that the blood takes a second to pool and gush, but it catches up quick enough. Right there, under numb fingers.

The blood is pink, the blood is red, the blood is black, and there’s nothing to do but stare-stare-stare as it drip-dot-bubbles up from the slice. Can’t look away, can’t close parted lips as the blood roll-dollop-drops into an open mouth. Stuttering breath, stopped breath. Oh my.

Red-black Nephilim blood spreads and smears. Tastes like copper first, with a heart thudding like thunder in a closed-up throat. Tastes like silver next, when it pushes past the stain of humanity’s mess. 

But…it’s healing. Even stretched open like this, the flesh is healing. Tendrils and flaps of muscle reach out— _hands grasping for purchase_ —and connect-join-heal. There’s no flash of light or spark of magic, nothing ethereal about it expect for how it shouldn’t exist.

 _'Like you._ '

Yamato, heavy in hand, sounds amused, gently amused, and how many times has she seen this? How many wielders has she had, and how many Nephilim on top of that? Is there the time to ask?

No, probably not. There’s so much else to do instead. So much more to learn. How much, Yamato?

 _'So very much, little Nephilim_.'

“Teach me?” asked so polite butter wouldn’t melt. Though it should. It should melt and leak and smear all over the tiles, dry into the cracks and be a reminder.

But it doesn’t. And, like the butter that doesn’t melt, the blood wipes away all so easy. A drag of a hand, a swipe of a cloth, and the mirror is clean again. A few seconds more and so is this face. Perfectly unnatural.

 _'Of course_.'

* * *

“Dante!”

“Vergil!”

And they land in a crumbled, crumpled heap on a dusty floor. With glass crashing through the portal with them, breaking like music. With fire licking at their skin and sizzling their fucking blood.

“Fuck,” he snarls, grinding his knuckles in glass and dust and soot, and trying to push himself up.

“Fuck!” When he slips in his own fucking blood, twice, before he gets a good enough grip with the glass in his fucking knuckles.

They’re…they’re somewhere. Somewhere outside of the city? No, no he doesn’t think so.

Dante takes a breath, using the wall to stand, then another one and waits for his eyes to adjust to the dark. They’re kinda shot from the fire and he’s still got the green after images spotted across his eyes.

In the meantime, he takes stock. Reb’s back wherever she usually is, pocket dimension or whatever Vergil said. The girls are holstered, his ankle’s broken but healing, and his arms are shredded to shit. The blood’s still dripping and the skin’s knitting.

Fucking _Seere_.

“Dante? Are you okay?” Vergil asks, a voice in the gloom, using the gutted bedframe to get to his feet.

In the dark, which ain’t so dark anymore, Vergil looks as out of place as Dante feels. Blinking wide eyes, looking around at the; soot covered floors, fire gutted walls, and up at the broken ceiling. Where are they? Someplace that got gutted and slutted by a fire then left to rot for twelve years maybe?

“Yeah, you?”

Cause his brother’s standing okay now, back straight, head up, but Vergil’s good at hiding shit. He could be bleeding into his lungs, _again_ , and be acting like he’s just fine. But, nah, he’s nodding and there’s no new blood scent so Dante figures they’re both as good as they’re gonna get.

Even if they are crouched in the rubble again. Alone except for each other. Not for the first time, definitely not the last, but this place…this place was the first. With the burnt up but still standing bedframe, and the broken window spilling some grey gloom. And the spot on the wall where their family portraits used to be, the smaller ones.

“Where’d you take us?” Dante still asks.

Cause he has to, it’s what Verge expects and it’d be weird if he didn’t ask the obvious question. And shit’s already weird enough.

They went to recruit a demon prince and got slashed to shit when the fucker _exploded_. Then they fell through three and a half stories of one of the last standing buildings in Limbo City. Stories that were on fire, green fire, that burned like a mother _fucker_ , and hurt like a bitch to go through.

Took three tries to latch Ophion onto something sturdy enough to drag them back out. First support beam he could grab crumbled, second one ripped out of the fucking ceiling. Third time was the charm though. Got him and Vergil back up to the penthouse, then out the god damn window into open air.

Smashing through the glass hurt, and the split-second weightlessness was a kick in the dick, but they’re okay. They’re good. They can get back to the city from here, find Seere, and beat his shit in.

“I…I didn’t mean to bring us here,” Vergil mutters, head tilting down so he can look (frown?) at Yamato.

Didn’t mean…it’s probably a miracle the walls have held up so long. After the break-in and the fire, then all the years with nobody here to deal with all the weather damage and whatever other shit. Dante putting his fist through one of these’d probably bring the whole place down, right? Right.

So he doesn’t do that. Even though his fingers are twitching with the urge to curl up and smack hard, glass be fucking damned. He gets the girls out instead. And now what?

“I think Seere did.”

Beat the shit out of the snake prince, right.

Dante doesn’t bother asking how Seere could even do shit like that, he’s sure there’s an occult answer he won’t really get. So, instead of that, he stalks over to the broken window to make sure they’re really where he thinks they are. Though he doesn’t need to, it’s something to do that’s not blowing holes in walls. This ain’t the bathroom in Rev’s.

Every step creaks, each one threatening to dump his ass another story down, but the floorboards hold enough to get him across the room. And when he sticks his head out the window, yup.

They’re in the old house, their old _home_. The garden’s out back, overrun and sharp under the halfmoon shadows, and he can just about see the big driveway around front. They’re back home because Seere wanted them here, and why did Seere want them here? He’s got no fucking clue.

“Dante do you remember anything before Mundus attacked us?” Vergil asks, voice muffled in the house behind him, “the first time, when we were kids.”

Does he remember? What does he remember? Hide and seek in the library, tip-toeing between the shelves because they weren’t supposed to play in there. Eating breakfast out in the garden with Mom, by the dried-up fountain; she used to plant strawberries and he’d eat them right off the bush.

And Mom would laugh so hard, looking at his red stained mouth and sticky hands. And she’d smiled so happy cause he’d always bring some for her too, because they liked strawberries. Vergil and Dad didn’t, but him and Mom did. It was their favourite.

What’s he remember? He remembers sleeping in this very fucking room with his brother, curled up under a heavy blanket because the nights got cold sometimes. Back to back, because they were brothers and they trusted each other. Back to back because that’s what felt right, felt safe.

And fuck. He can’t remember feeling safe since he left this place. Since he forgot Vergil, and Mom, and Dad, and got himself lost in a world that didn’t give a _fuck_ about a Nephilim kid.

…is any of that what Vergil wants to hear?

“Do you remember any _one_?”

He barely remembers Sparda and Eva, and he’s tried, fuck knows he’s tr—

“There’s something in the garden,” Dante hisses, squinting to see better.

Something or someone? He can’t tell. Can’t even see much in the washed out, black-white gloom, but there’s something moving out there. Over by the wall, between the tree—there it is again. Definitely something moving.

“What?” Vergil hisses back, creaking across the floor, and Dante shuffles over until Vergil can squeeze in too.

“Under the tree,” he says under his breath, and whatever moves back, or no, it’s unfolding. Ruffling?

…are those feathers?

“I think that’s an angel, brother,” Vergil breathes.

* * *

She’s gutter trash, street filth, why should you care?

She’s lovely under the fear, and gorgeous behind the rage. Don’t you think?

And tuck that bit of hair behind her ear and sweep a gentle thumb along that bruise. Yes magical, so…magical.

“What’s your name?”

“Katerina.”

You let her follow you. Because she’s lonely _~~and so are you~~_. Because she’s lost _~~and you sympathise~~_. Because she could be useful someday _~~and you need help~~_.

“An-and your name?”

“I’m…Vergil.”

You give her your name. You’ve barely used it but you give it to her anyway. So desperate to hear it, so desperate to be _him_ , Vergil.

And she fawns over you, like a puppy. Devotes every sleeping second to you. Hangs off your every. Last. Word. And you, terrible you, love it. You love it more than this power you’ve found and this legacy you’ve dug up and the blood you’ll spill.

“V-Vergil? Oh my G-God, Vergil, Vergil.”

“Shh, it’s okay.”

You want to be her guardian angel, so you kill him. You want to be her knight in shining armour, so you cut his throat and bleed him dry. You want so bad it aches in your chest and drops you to your knees in front of her. Knife hitting the ground, fingers trembling as they reach for her.

She’s shaking, shaking like a leaf in the breeze, and that vicious mix of fear and shock is lovely. Oh it’s gorgeous.

“Vergil you—”

“He can’t hurt you anymore Kat,” you, terrible you, whisper.

“You’re safe.”

And she doesn’t flinch away from your touch. Not as you cup her cheek, not as you kiss her forehead.

“Thank you. God. **_Thank you_**.”

And you don’t pull out of her trembling embrace, or grimace as she wipes the blood from your face. You only have eyes for her admiration, devotion, and wholehearted obsession.

* * *

Dante remembers— _half remembers, almost doesn’t_ —getting tucked into a too big bed and always scrambling around until he could find Vergil. Reaching for his brother, fitting against the curve of Vergil’s spine. He remembers his mother’s fingers brushing hair out of his face, her palm cool on his cheek. She had a beautiful smile, a real smile.

He sees it on Vergil sometimes. When his brother cuts back on the Order bullshit and lets himself enjoy life. Vergil’s got their mom’s smile…and so does this woman.

“Who are you?” Vergil asks, takes point because Dante sure as shit doesn’t want to.

Getting out of the house was easy, they just jumped out the window and landed cat quiet in the grass. Getting into the garden was hard; overgrown hedges, fallen over trees, fucking broken-down fence, made it hard to move an inch without making a racket.

Not that even mattered. This…woman standing under their mother’s tree watched them stalk close, closer. Smiling, like Eva, and tracking them with eyes doubled over like Seere’s. Four snake-slitted pupils watching them.

“And what are you doing here?”

Verge gets points for staying calm and rational. More points for keeping Yamato at his side. He’s putting on the whole harmless act, like it takes more’n a second to draw his sword and lop off heads. Right.

Dante doesn’t bother pretending. He’s got Ivory levelled at those fucking wings, tucked in close and shedding feathers. If she tries anything, he’ll clip the bitches, and Vergil will slit her throat. Easy.

Will that work? He’s not sure, he’s never killed an angel before, but Mundus did. So yeah, they can die, might just take some effort.

“I’ll ask you again, who are you?”

And, cause the night’s so fucking boring, something else explodes. With a distant boom and a burst of fire that snaps his attention off the angel.

Look, cock his head back, and look over the wall. There. To the left of the skyline, there’s something burning green. Another explosion, this one he sees, that spits shit up into the sky. Arcing against the stars then crashing down-down. Whatever it is lands too far away to hear, but the booms as more whatever the fuck gets blasted echo back to him.

That’s the Avalon burning out there. The whole fucking thing going up in green-gold-green flames and spitting shit out. Jesus _fuck_.

“I was hoping you’d remember me,” a voice like memory laughs, low and smooth like gentle fingers through his thoughts, “but I suppose babies _are_ babies. Nephilim or not.”

Shit _fuck_ , right.

Dante tears his eyes away from the sky, back to the smiling angel-woman. How’s he know she’s an angel? Easy, demons don’t have wings like hers; full feathered, gold, sweeping up and over her head into the lowest branches. Demons don’t pulse with that kinda power either.

What’s it ‘posed to be? Calming? Relaxing? Makes him wanna drop his gun and drop his shoulders and just sit down. Lie down. Take a nap maybe, sleep forever. _Fuck_.

“ _Who_ are—"

And her laugh cuts Vergil right off. And, Dante can’t see his brother’s face, dare not take his eyes off the bitch again, but he figures Vergil’s eyes must be as wide as his. Maybe wider. Because if Dante remembers that laugh, then Vergil definitely does.

Echoing through their house, burbling up from the garden. From under this tree. Where Mom would sit with her wings out, spread to soak up the heat from the sun. Cause it was cold here, she always said it was cold here, not like where she was from. She said the sun was lots closer there.

Mom had…but Mom’s wings were red, blood red, love red, like her hair. And her voice wasn’t like this and she never made him wanna sleep. Not that he can barely remember.

“Did you know Demons and Angels aren’t that different? When the war started we didn’t even _have_ a difference,” the woman says, tilting her head, looking at; Vergil, and Dante, their swords, his gun, the sky. Doubled over, snake-slit eyes, just like Seere.

Except these are cold gold, instead of quicksilver. Except her hair’s white, but not the same silver-white. Except…except there’s feathers growing along her throat, creeping up to her face, and they’re just as gold as her wings. Gold not silver, feathers not scales, but still the same.

“Came from the same stock, but circumstances changed our looks,” the angel hums, winks, at Dante?

Next to him, in blurry peripheral, Vergil twitches—flinches? A whole body jerk, and Dante’s finger tightens on the trigger.

This is the first angel he’s ever seen— _that he can remember_ —and he will not hesitate to kill it. Because whatever the fuck any of that means makes sense to Vergil, and it’s upsetting him. Enough to react in front of a stranger.

“Seere, Demon Prince of the Night, whose office is to go and come,” she recites, cause it sounds like a quote to him. Like something from one of Vergil’s demon hierarchy presentations.

“Unsere, Virtue of Heaven, and patron of childbirth,” and Vergil freezes up so solid Dante hears his heart _stop_ , “Your mother was a dear friend who I could never abandon, demon lover or not, I loved her first.”

And stutter to a start.

Which is…yeah. Yes. Good, that’s good.

 _Fuck_.

Is she lying? She has to be fucking lying. Eva was the only angel on earth, Vergil was so sure. Mundus closed all the gates and he shut down the liminal places, put guards there to hack any angel to pieces. So Unsere? Bitch’s lying, she didn’t know Eva, she didn’t fucking love their mother.

But…but Vergil’s not saying that. He’s not calling the bitch on her lie. He’s barely breathing.

“Verg—”

And he swings Yamato up, levelled at her throat. Like Seere. And the angel smiles the same amused smile, winks at Dante.

“Did you think Eva was the only one Sparda let through? Especially when she was giving up so much for him?” Unsere murmurs, quiet, like she’s sharing a secret and Dante can’t—

He wants to draw Rebellion and shove her through this bitch’s heart. Angels got hearts, he knows that. Beating red, bleeding red hearts. He could kill this fucker before she says anything else. Shut her up before she lies some more.

But how’d that go with Seere? Dumped them four stories down into a pit of fire. Launched them out a fucking window into a free fall Vergil saved them from. If they corner her, will Unsere shatter like glass too? Cut them to shit and run?

“She didn’t want to get me involved but what choice did she have? There was nobody better than me to deliver her children, and only a fellow devil lover could understand why she’d even chosen this,” Unsere sneers, reaching up-up to wrap delicate fingers around Yamato’s blade and—

Bang!

“Didn’t you ever learn not to touch things that don’t belong to you?” Dante asks, as blithe and obnoxious as he knows how. Who gives a fuck that his heart just dropped?

Or that it’s still dropping, splatting on the fucking ground and beating all sick. What’s that matter? Doesn’t. Now when Unsere’s pulling the same stunt Seere did, except no she’s not, not on Dante’s watch.

She’s bleeding instead, and her blood’s red. And her fingers’re dangling by a thread of skin, wiggling nasty in the breeze. And her eyes’re as wide as can be. Glinting gold in the dark, snake slits almost round in shock. Oh yeah, score one for Dante.

“Ohh you really are Eva’s boy,” Unsere laughs, _laughs_ , like she’s not missing fingers. Except she isn’t. Except the fucking just-about-blown-off fingers snap back into place with a gristly crunch and she’s batting Yamato away. Smiling all sweet at Verge when he just swings his sword back.

“And you’re Sparda’s. They would’ve been so very proud,” she sighs, and just sits. Drops on her ass and sits with her back to the tree, wings spreading up and out.

He almost shoots her again, just to get the upper-hand back, but he doesn’t think it’d work a second time. She just laughed the first time anyway, said he was like…said he was like Mom. And he’s not ready to believe she knew Eva but he’s not _not_ ready to believe her either.

Fuck, he doesn’t know what he believes, and Vergil’s just standing there. Not saying anything. He could really use the backup on this bro.

“Apologies, this is not how I imagined our meeting going. I didn’t expect—” and she cuts herself off, “Would you let me explain? There are things you should know that no one else will tell you.”

And the bitch, the fucking bitch. Dante knows she’s got them— _Vergil_ —before his brother even breathes a too sharp breath and half turns to him.

Under the tree, where Verge’s not looking, Unsere winks.

* * *

There’s a gnawing hunger in you, Son of Sparda. There’s a festering, raw thing cotched up under your ribs that burns-burns-burns when you look at that gutter rat girl. Something whispering, “ _rip the sun from the sky and break it at her feet_ ”. Some wretched thing that bends backwards for her shy smiles and batting eyes.

Bitch.

And you don’t notice, don’t realise, until it gets pointed out. By the others in your Order. By the techs hiding their smiles like you’re hiding demon lies, and the men on the ground feeding you-feeding you information.

“You’re a cute couple,” one girl chuckles, with spotter’s blood dried into her knuckles. She’s dead by week’s end and you tell them, “She turned on us. Cut and run when the demons made an offer”.

Which is just another lie. You’re so cock full of them, do you even taste the shit dripping from your lips anymore? No, possibly not. You have smaller things to taste, worthless things. This girl.

You love her. You, terrible you, love her and isn’t that quite pathetic, little love?

“Shut up.”

Why Vergil? Why shut up when there’s so much to say? About you and her and how utterly pathetic you are to let something like her steal your rotted heart. She is nothing. A dime a dozen psychic with enough trauma to smother her weak little life dead. She is nothing and you were supposed to be more.

With your father’s guile and mother’s blessing, you were meant to take revenge. Paint the sky red with their rage, flood the world blue with their bitterness. She gave you the edge, he gave you the whetstone, but are they wasted on you?

Their son, their hope for vengeance and peace. The last of Eva and Sparda, except for the brother you’ve forsaken for your whore. A brother who is suffering while you’re fucking the sad little psychic and playing checkers with the devil who’s mastered chess.

You’re better than her, sad little her, and you’re better than this. Hiding to protect yourself from his gaze. Slinking and sneaking and spying like a fellow gutter rat. Ducked down behind these screens instead of fighting a savage holy war with your sword, your brother, and your power.

Except, you don’t even have that. Haven’t found him, haven’t unlocked it. And they are just another excuse to love this sad little psychic. Because your power is hidden from you, like the memories of your brother’s face, his name. You tell yourself that your psychic can help you find those secrets, brush the dust off those memories, but those are only more lies.

You know what must be done and where he will be. So why drag it out?

You are Nephilim. You are the cold power time forgot. What may kill a demon king? Half-breed hybrid children. What may take the empty throne? Half-blooded bastards.

You were meant for more.

You were meant for everything.

You were meant to take the world!

“Shut up!”

And what’s that going to do, little love? Give you back the reason for being that you’ve cast aside? Find the brother you forgot again?

“Vergil? Vergil are you okay?”

What can she do? Distract you, drag you down. She’s drowning Vergil, and she’s already got her hooks in deep enough to drag you down with her. Will you let that happen? What will you do?

“Kat I…there’s a new spell I’ve found.”

“Really? Something that can help us?”

“Yes, I think so. It’s for memory, come take a look?”

* * *

They sit and they listen to Unsere for fuck knows how long. Sprawl off in the grass that crunched under their feet but is soft now. Sitting side by side like he _does_ remember. Cause they sit like this at home, when Vergil’s working on whatever fucking report or leading a strike team to assassinate another official.

Vergil straight backed and one leg bent, hands resting all prissy in his lap. Yamato disappears the second Unsere offers up information, twinkling off to wherever she goes when Verge doesn’t need her. Dante sits like he always sits, criss-cross applesauce and slouched over, chin in his hand, gun in his lap. Reb is still on his back, cause he needs her, and the girls are one trigger pull away from killing an angel.

If the girls were devil arms like Reb, he thinks they’d like that. First things to kill an angel in years? Hell yeah, his girls’d love that.

Unsere, the angel bitch on high, sits like something outta fuckin’ painting. Looking all big eyed and waify. The dress helps pull it off, it’s simple, not anything like he thought an angel would wear. Not white, not lacey, no veil, and yeah, maybe he thought angels’d wear wedding dresses but fuck, what else was he supposed to think?

That’d they dress like poor servant girls from whenever the fuck Italy? Unsere’s in some off-white cotton dress, it looks like the kinda shit tourists wear down by the beach cause it looked good in pictures. Unsere’s that. And she’s a snake. Awesome.

“Angels and Demons used to fight over an idea, a simple ideology. Someone was right, someone else was wrong, and we could never agree who,” she says, dragging the tip of a too big wing into her lap. Feathers scatter every move those fucking things make, dropping like dandruff.

And hey, what if he used those to stuff a pillow? Might be the best pillow in the world.

“Then we fought over the mounting war crimes. Demons killed Seraphim and we killed Princes. They stole our best strategist, so we took back a general. It was bloody, brutal, and petty.”

Dante watches her straighten out of place feathers and keeps his eyes on the smooth slick of her wrist. Better than her fucking face. She’s gorgeous, because of course she is, and it’s just as wrong as Seere was. Too perfect, too even. She’s got the fullest lips and the sharpest cheekbones, a delicate sloped nose, and is generally as beautiful as it gets.

And it’s all wrong.

Looking at her is like staring at the sun. He did that once, when he was blizted out of his brain on pain and struggling to suck down a breath. After the prison. Looking at Unsere’s boring into his head and leaving an aching afterimage. Fuck.

“I was created hand in hand with my brother, joined at the palms, which was an unforeseen development. We were cut apart of course, but we wouldn’t let go. We never would, not even for his Fall or the gate’s close.”

Well that’s…three guesses who’s the brother.

Vergil leans forward, the slightest bit of lean, but Dante sees it and Unsere does too. She’s got them hooked with that one little bit, and Dante sighs. Okay, he guesses he can believe whatever she’s saying, if Verge does.

They get the whole sob story after that of course. While Unsere combs out her goldish wings, bottom-up. She talks about her brother, Seere, because of _course_ it’s fucking Seere. How he decided to flip the script and play for the other team in some pointless war. How he was always gonna come back, he just wanted to see how the other side did it.

Then the war ended and he got stuck on the wrong side, away from his sister. And Dante can’t help himself, he’s gotta laugh. Under his breath and into the collar of his jacket, but he still laughs.

Demons, angels, what’s the difference? Nothing, cause they’re both dumb as shit.

Unsere gives them the scientific run down, how angels turned into demons when they indulged in sin and let it change them. They could resist, of course they could, and they could go back to Heaven, but why’d any of them wanna do that after they got a taste of the good shit? So, the best demons came from the naughtiest angels.

The ones who sinned and kept on sinning. The ones who found a way down into Hell, deeper, deeper, oh yeah baby right there! The deepest parts of Hell were just the places where the worst sins congealed and turned into pure energy, or some fucking shit like that. Then it’d start seeping back up.

Only the best-worst demons could live down in the deepest depths, and that’s the pit Mundus crawled his rotted ass out of. And Vergil, ever the perky scholar boy, starts asking questions too.

“You’re saying demonic corruption is akin to ocean pressures that result in deep-sea giantism?” he asks, nearly breathless with excitement, grabbing Dante’s arm and not even realising.

Unsere smiles another too real smile when Verge does, stroking her wing and saying, “Yes, nearly exactly that.”

Then off again about shit Dante doesn’t really care about. Sure it’s interesting to hear about the demon world and the angel world, but not really? The kinda detail Vergil wants is just too much for Dante to care about or keep up with. And when they start talking about meta-physics, he checks out.

He looks up at the sky, tracking the fireballs that the Avalon keeps spitting out. Counts the beats between them and yeah, they start to slow down two hours in. The hotel doesn’t burn any less bright though, doesn’t collapse in on itself either. ‘s like somebody keeps throwing gas on it and it’s eating that up instead of the building.

Or maybe it’s more demon magic, he doesn’t fucking know.

“Nephilim are so strong because they can adapt to either and thrive. They don’t burn in Heaven, they don’t corrupt in Hell, they were too dangerous for either side to leave unchecked,” Unsere mutters darkly, eyes narrowed to gold slits. She’s onto hair by then. Brushing it out with her fingers and braiding it bit by bit.

Every braid stays neat and nice after she finishes, perfect. And Dante’s almost sure that shit’s glowing, or the angel is? Can’t really tell since he can already see too good in the dark. Didn’t used to, but after Mundus he did. See in the dark, hear a gnat fart two streets away. Vergil said it was probably from their power unlocking during the fight, more of it seeping out. Said he it got like that for him after too, and maybe Verge knows if she’s really glowing or not.

“Were twins common among the Nephilim?” his brother’s asking though, completely caught up in everything Unsere’s saying.

Dante doesn’t know if Vergil’s accepting all this wholesale or if it’s just confirming shit he already suspected, because everything out her mouth, Verge’s got a question for. Technical questions, complex questions, the kinda shit Dante would never think to ask, so he figures his brother’s had some time to think about all this and knew half of it already. How though?

Researching demons was probably hard enough, since those fucking things didn’t exist to the wider world until a month ago. And angels were cut off since way before that, most of their shit would’a gotten the chop under Mundus, so how does Vergil know any of this?

“No, it was rare enough for us, and Demons too. I’d never heard of Nephilim twins until Eva came to me for her babies.”

Dante can’t help looking at her face when she says that though, just like Verge can’t help clinging tighter. Those fingers are digging into his arm almost painful now but Dante doesn’t brush them away, he knows Vergil needs this and fuck he needs this too. Something to hold onto while they get another part of their puzzle.

“How did she contact you?” Vergil asks, still cool, calm, and collected. If Dante didn’t know better, he’d think his brother was in Jack Flash, Head of the Order mode. It’s almost the exact same as that, but not.

He can feel Vergil’s _budup-bup-dup_ heartbeat slapping against his arm, creeping up between his shoulder blades. This is an edge of mania kinda vibe, just less maps and celebrating.

“Sparda controlled the liminal tear for centuries, he let her through. On her own, as she said he didn’t want to let her go by herself but he would’ve been cut down if he followed her. It’s what we thought happened to her, until she came to me with her water already broken and more scared than she’d ever been on the front lines.

She trusted me, she loved me. She knew I wouldn’t—that I _couldn’t_ give her up,” Unsere whispers, eyes narrowing, fingers curling. She doesn’t look mad, or scared, but there’s a weird energy there.

Kinda like, kinda like Vergil when he works himself up too high. Hysteric? Yeah, hysteria, and Dante thinks he’s feeling a little bit of it too. Crawling into his throat and sticking, or maybe that’s his heart. Or the sweat covering his palms, shit.

What’s he getting nervous for? Excited? The angel bitch ain’t gonna tell him anything life changing, how can she? Eva’s dead. Mom’s **_dead_**. He saw that with his own eyes, and even if he didn’t, he knows.

Just like he knows Dad’s never coming back either. So what, other than that, could she tell them that’d rock his world? Nothing. Not one fucking thing.

“She brought me to this place, her Paradise,” spindly fingers fluttered at their gutted-out home, “and she introduced me to Sparda. Then I guided her through the birth, hours like soft eternities. Her scream still echoes in my head.”

And Unsere laughs, quiet and dry. Looks down at her lap and dozens of braids.

“She’d told me she was expecting two, and I could tell from her size, but I still wasn’t prepared for…she couldn’t have you,” Unsere says, laughs again. But it’s choking, wet, and Dante fails to see what’s so fucking funny.

Next to him Vergil freezes shock-still, not even breathing.

“So a c-section, we had to perform a c-section on an Angel to birth her Nephilim twins. None of us were prepared for that but we didn’t have much of a choice. Sparda cut her open with Rebellion, and I cut the cords with Yamato. First Dante, then Vergil.”

Okay, now Dante sees what’s funny. He’s older by a cut, wow. He’s opening his mouth to ask if that’s how that works, but Unsere’s still talking and she’s sure as fuck not smiling.

“If we had the time, I would’ve used proper tools but there was a complication, or rather, an unforeseen development. Nephilim twins were odd enough, but I never expected Eva’s children to be conjoined.”

…

“What?”

Punched out. The question gets punched out of Vergil, Dante just feels punched. A solid hit to the chest, caving in ribs, squeezing his lungs.

 _Fuck_.

No that. Lie. She’s lying, she’s fucking lying. They couldn’t—he couldn’t and Vergil.

“Vergil,” it’s a croak and a wheeze and begging all in one because… _because_.

Reb’s heavy on his back and the girls are heavy in his hands and Vergil’s touch burns all the way through latex and leather. They were conjoined? That’s not—can’t be true. Dante would know. He would’ve known. Definitely.

Except…except he didn’t even _know_ he had a brother until a few months ago. He didn’t know he was Nephilim or why demons were always chasing him down.

Didn’t know what the fuck Limbo was even though he got dragged there and held there. Thrown in a fucking demon prison and left to fucking rot until Rebellion found him. And saved him.

She saved him. From the prison, from dying as a baby. Fuck. **_Fuck_**.

“How?”

Dante and Vergil. His collected enough to ask questions brother. Who’s got a death grip on his arm, fingers digging in so tight the blood can’t push through. Who sounds just as punch drunk and scooped clean as he feels.

Vergil who…how’d he ever forget _Vergil_? His brother. His…brother.

“Where were we…” Vergil trails off but they all know what he’s asking. And Dante knows he’s only asking because he’s _Vergil_.

He needs answers to everything. He needs to read them, hear them, understand them. So, even if he feels the answer tumbling in his gut like a liquid breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Vergil still wants to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

And Unsere, the only angel Dante can ever remember, smiles her sad-real smile and reaches up over her shoulder. Her wings stretch and spread out, making her look like how he thought Christmas angels did, to make room and she half turns to them. Trusting them with her back.

Dante doesn’t need to look but Vergil will want the proof and a witness, so he doesn’t blink away. When Unsere shifts her wing, when she spreads her fingers, and when she touches that hard to reach place between her shoulder blades. Dante watches it all, and wishes he could look away.

* * *

“Found you!” Her new one hisses, plenty pleased and self-satisfied.

Fingers down her saya, latex catching and sliding. Her new one insists on it, to hold himself away from the world he does not belong to anymore. She understands. Her old one was the same. Always at a distance, always apart.

Her new one is so much like her old one, and so much not. Precise, guarded, driven, and cold. She doesn’t think they’d adapt to each other, only at odds. Though, that isn’t a bad thing.

She drinks of her wielder as freely as their enemy. Tastes them, bites them, kills them. Should her new face her old, she will all too gladly drink the blood she once defended. Because she was won away, as she always is. Taken from Demon hand, stolen by Angel blood, given to Nephilim, held by Nephilim.

Then, then, then hoisted by a King, won over by a brother, and gifted to a lover. And. And Eva. Hmm. Quiet, dead years in a grave, holding a place for a body that didn’t exist and mourning an Angel who’d gone over. Eva.

“We found him,” her new one sighs. Eyes close, head tilts, basking in a job done well if not done soon.

He’s arrogant, this new one, believes everything happens to suit him and under his own power. Lost his brother, found his brother, and now ready to avenge his struck dead mother. All of it according to plan, stuck on schedule like a fly in amber.

He dare not consider elsewise, and refuse to hear it too. Such conceit. Though that isn’t bad either.

Her new one is strong, driven, and willing. To do whatever he must to take a throne. To do whatever sweets him best as he conquers his bad blooded uncle. There’s nothing wrong with ambitious over-confidence. What good would a Lord be without it?

“We’re getting somewhere,” he says, to himself, to her. To her through himself. Arrogant boy.

He thinks and presumes too much. That he found his brother on his own. That her sentience is aloof and uncaring. That his brother will fall into the fold without a whisper. Wrong on every count and it is endlessly endearing.

Should she tell him then that _Rebellion_ saved his brother? That _her_ cold forged sister protected the boy and brought him home, brought him back into his _own_. Like she’d done for him.

Yes, better now than never. Before he gets too complacent in his own achievements. Better to snatch them out from under him and force him to fall. Maybe he would catch himself then, as he should. On an updraft, with wind ruffled pinions. She should teach him to fall and let him learn to soar.

Should, should, shan’t.

Her new one is far more entertaining while he stumbles half blind. Thinking this, doing that. She enjoys it, almost forgot what naivety could be. Vergil reminds her of helter-skelter youths and quenchings of blood. He returns her to the frontlines, held too tight in an inexperienced hand, and turned against an inexperienced war.

This war and this hand are distinctly different. No angel blood whets her nagasa and no demon cuts reality to ribbons with her direction. But there is enough devil blood to forge her anew. And enough angelic grace to cut the world apart.

This crusade against Mundus may be a pale reflection of the war she was forged for, but she will content herself with it, if she must. And she must. Because there are debts to pay.

“Finally.”

Yes finally.

She couldn’t save the father and she failed the mother, but the children are here. Vergil and Dante. Mundus and Sparda. So much alike and so much apart. Following down the same paths, fighting the same battles, but she won’t let their ending be the same. Not again.

There are debts to pay. And finally. Yes finally. Here is here chance to fill them.

* * *

The Avalon is still burning. Hours after Seere blew the thing to shit? Still burning. Great.

Dante doesn’t…he wants to be mad. Wants to throw his fist through a wall, get in a dirty back alley fight. Being mad’d be better than feeling so upside-down _lost_ because what the hell does he do with **_that_**?

Conjoined? Him and Vergil were born attached at the spine? How the fuck is he supposed to feel about that? What’s that even supposed to _mean_?

… _fuck_ he wants a smoke, but he left his shit at the apartment. And fuck he wants a drink, but Vergil isn’t ready to leave yet.

He’s just, he’s just staring at the tree. Mom’s tree. Looking at it like it’s got all the answers, instead of at Unsere who’s actually got all the answers.

And yeah, okay, maybe Dante can get up a little rage. A little hackles up, guns out anger. Because Unsere’s there, sitting on the wall with her legs dangling down and her wings spread out. She’s there, watching them with doubled-up snake-slit eyes that he doesn’t fucking trust. Just…watching.

She told them so much, about Heaven, about Hell, and the war. Told them about Eva, and a little bit of Sparda, but Dante wants more. He wants to know why the hell she had to go and tell them about themselves. What was the **_fucking_** point?

And, because he can’t help himself, he reaches back to feel at that spot between his shoulder blades. There’s a tattoo there, or a sigil, or maybe it’s a brand, he doesn’t fucking know. He _didn’t_ know. Not until he was old enough to know what fucking was and how good it could be.

First time was a girl, a foster sister. He can’t remember her name, Faith or Fae or Felicia, she was the oldest one in the house, older than him by a few years. He was twelve and desperate to get some attention, to at least make believe someone cared about him. Whether he lived or died or…so when his “ _sister_ ” invited him up to her room, the one she didn’t have to share with nobody, he went.

The details are hazy, what they did and how long, it wasn’t important. Her eyes on him, her smile, that’s what he cared about. Her attention, maybe her affection. When they were done was when she saw it, when he turned around to put back on his shirt.

She’d scoffed, asked how a shrimp like him already had a tatt. Did he steal the scratch to do it? Was that why he got kicked out his last family? And he’d had no clue what the hell she was talking about. Not until later when he creeped out of his shared bed to lock himself in the bathroom and twist and turn and squint at the mirror.

A sword and wings. He used to think it was a cult thing, a brand from the family he was with before the meningitis. According to his record he was an orphan from birth, so he just figured it was from one in his long line of shitty foster families. Now, now he doesn’t know what to think.

Is it a Nephilim brand? Something all of them are born with to focus their power. Or’s it a Sparda and Eva thing, Sparda was hot shit and Unsere implied Eva was too, so maybe it’s from them? Or shit, is it from where she split him and Verge apart? A scar that’ll never heal.

He. Doesn’t. Fucking. Know.

Unsere probably does but she’s not saying. Probably cause they’re not asking, but damn it, he’s not gonna open those flood gates again. Who knows what other stomach-turning shit she’s got hidden under her tongue? Tch, _fuck_.

What’s the game plan then?

Stand by the dried-up fountain and watch the Avalon burn. Sweet.

Five minutes of that and Dante’s antsy, glancing at Vergil again. Verge hasn’t said anything since he asked his last question. Not when Unsere got up and wandered over to the wall. Not when Dante got up and stalked to the garden gate, then back, then over, and back again. Vergil just stared, and watched, and got up to go stand under the tree.

Unsere told them Seere did his shatter shit to get their blood. Nephilim blood was good for breaking seals, demonic and angelic included. Seere used their blood to break into Devils and open up the liminal tear for the angels. For his sister.

So, Verge was right, but does it matter anymore? Seere’s not gonna help them, he never even wanted to be a demon. Now that Heaven’s open again, he’s got his sister back and no reason to stick around. And they’re back to square one on the whole demonic allies thing.

They should go. They should leave. There’s nothing left for them here except ghosts and bad memories.

“Vergil we—”

“Dante I—”

And they both stop, stare at each other. Dante takes a breath, Vergil licks his lips.

They’re identical. Same face, same eyes, but Dante didn’t recognise it at first. When Kat carried him to that shitty warehouse and introduced him to her dickish Boss, Dante didn’t realise. Blue eyes okay, common enough, white hair, Dante didn’t have that, but the rest of the face.

The guy had Dante’s cheekbones, Dante’s jaw, the same turned down lips and sharp nose. Had Dante’s attention by being so fucking familiar and completely unrecognisable at the same time. That guy became Vergil, Vergil became his brother, and now Vergil’s his conjoined twin.

The one person who’ll stand by him no matter what, who wanted him then and wants him now. They should go, and Dante’s gonna insist they do.

“We should go,” Dante says. Looking his brother in the eye and holding it.

He doesn’t wanna fight. He really doesn’t wanna fight. But if Vergil doesn’t agree, then Dante doesn’t see any other choice.

“I think we should,” Vergil agrees… _agrees?_ Dante almost thinks he heard wrong but no, Vergil’s drawing Yamato, ready to portal them home. Which yeah okay, okay great.

“Thank you, Unsere, for everything you’ve told us,” Vergil says, raising his voice but not turning his head. He’s keeping that eye contact and refusing to let it drop. It’s intense, almost overwhelming, but not.

Dante’s got all of Vergil’s attention, no one but him, and it’s nice. Nice to know, and have, even as Verge’s cutting them a shortcut through reality which seems pretty attention heavy. His brother’s eyes are on him.

“My thanks for giving me my brother again,” Unsere calls, and then she’s gone. The heavy, suffocating calm disappears and he can breathe again, but he doesn’t turn to make sure.

Vergil’s holding a hand out to him, and something about that is…they’re always reaching for each other huh? Vergil offers him a hand, reaching for him like no one else ever has, and Dante takes that. He grabs tight and won’t ever let go again.

No one will ever separate them again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unsere!!!! I made her specifically for this fic. Seere, Rea, Haures and Zepar were all demons I used before in original works but Unsere is a special lady made just for here. Vepar too but shh, she just got iced. Unsere is acutally a demoness of childbirth but I figure demons were once angels so it works here. I hope she was alright.
> 
> Also, the fic title and chapter titles all come from [Death of Me by Pvris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sC0xkQA38t4). Warning for flashing lights.


	3. Kingdom Come Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Dante wants to do is go home, get drunk, and not think. All Vergil wants to do is drown himself in all this new information. There's so much to do, and so much else to plan. But...Kat's missing. She's gone, and they have to find her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cw: Blood. Canon Typical Violence. Beheading. Character Death. Broken Bones. Motorcycle Crash. 
> 
> Also, to enhance reading experience, I've linked two songs at the start of specific scenes that help set the mood. You don't have to of course but they added some nice emotion to the scenes that I liked. They appear as underlined words at the start of a paragraph.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this Vergil,” was what she’d said to him. After he’d got that call, and that look in his eye.

Liquid silver, quicksilver. Draining into that space inside himself that could never fill up because he was hollow all the way through. And he didn’t want to be. He wanted to have it all, the power, the prestige, more power. Always more.

Kat was worried about him. Worried more than she could ever tell him. He’d _changed_ after Mundus, got more reckless, got more…unreal. There was something about him these days that she couldn’t take her eyes off, and something with Dante too. She didn’t like it.

“We won’t be gone long, I promise,” he’d said, placating her. Giving her the pretty words and the soft voice that he always did. Because he wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t _not_ go.

Not because _she_ asked. There was so much more at stake than her feelings, there was always more at stake than just one person. She knew that, had always known that, and that was why it didn’t sting when he continued, “but we can’t let this opportunity pass us by.”

 _“Not us, you, just you Vergil,”_ she’d wanted to spit. Cut across his pretty words with an ugly shout. With all the terribleness she kept locked up inside. To make him stop and blink and frown and think of her first for once.

Was that too much to ask? To be his first priority just this once? She’d done so much for him and was still doing so much, and was too selfish to want a little bit of that back?

Maybe. Yes definitely. Kat knew what this meant, what it’d all meant. The world was almost free, totally and completely free. Vergil was doing this for the world, billions of lives, and Kat couldn’t get between that. She’d known that when she signed up for this, so why was it so hard to accept that now?

When Vergil’d been pulling on his coat and Dante’d holstered his guns. When they’d been…leaving her behind.

To watch the world, Vergil’d implied. To keep an eye on everything. He’d needed her here to hold down the fort while he went off recruiting. They hadn’t been leaving her, but it hadn’t felt that way.

“Be careful,” she’d told Dante instead. Taken him aside in the kitchen, stood on tiptoe, and whispered it right in his ear.

Because she hadn’t wanted Vergil _to_ hear. Because something was thrumming-humming-unpleasant in the back of her skull and she’d known what that meant. How could she not? Living years with it always there, always eating up her attention and dragging her out of the world.

She was focused now. An adult now, but still.

“ _Please_ be careful,” she’d begged him. Holding his hand between hers, squeezing the fingers that’d ripped right through demons before. Cracked necks, broke bones, and could still be so gentle.

Dante’d held her hand right back and stroked her knuckles. Had smiled at her so soft and sure, and tucked some too long hair behind her ear.

“We’ll be fine, we’re Nephilim, remember?” Dante’d murmured, ducking down to breathe it in her ear too.

He’d been soothing her, just like Vergil and she’d known that then and now, but he’d still undone that tight knot in her gut. Still got her to smile and nod and really think everything’d be okay.

Dante was always good at that. He was so genuine in everything he did, what he said. Kat’d tried to hold onto that as she waved them goodbye and they stepped through the portal. Dante never lied; Dante always knew what he was doing.

So she’d tried. All through the night. While she monitored their agents and redirected whoever needed it. The world didn’t stop just because her nerves were shot. There were on going protests to monitor, travel bans to agitate against, government officials hurrying and scurrying away from their sinking ships. It was a lot to focus on.

There was always a lot to focus on. Always something else, something easier to care about than herself. Step away from that and those emotions, because they were always too much, too complex, and too overlooked.

There wasn’t a Limbo to run away to anymore, but work was still there so that was where she went.

Until…stop. Look up and look around. Where were they? Four hours and nothing. Four hours _were_ nothing. A meeting with a devil lord could take days, between first contact and first fight. Vergil had disappeared for two whole weeks once and she’d been climbing the walls scared for him.

Two weeks to make contact with a demon duke, to get him on their side and believe in their capabilities. How long would a prince take? Way more than four hours.

So, four hours should be fine but why was she so stock-still shocked?

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” she whispered to the empty room, to the quietly humming computers.

One showed the behemoth carcass in Russia, their people had finally reached it. Another one had a map of every major empusa nest across the continental US, one in every city. Two had direct access to the UN’s database; rising death tolls and their causes. So much else to focus on, but she had a bad feeling about **_this_**.

And she had access to the security cameras in Devil’s Dalliance that still ran on the demonic network.

 _“I’ll deal with it when I have more information, we’ll leave it alone for now,_ ” was what Vergil had said after he came back bloody and bruised and half-manic.

She’d wanted to ask then too. What they’d done, who they’d fought. Vergil had been covered in blood, some of it his even. Dante’d been bruised up and furious, Dante’d _fought_ with his brother, and neither of them’d told her why. Definitely not Vergil, shockingly not Dante.

Whatever happened between them at the club, whatever Vergil’d done while he fought, Kat wasn’t gonna get filled in on. So Vergil had told her to drop it.

Leave it alone, leave it alone, always leave it alone until he said otherwise. Because he was the leader, because he had power, because he was _Vergil_.

Kat stared at the screen in front of her, the one showing all the neat little graphs of death. People were dying from demon attacks, people were dying in the riots, and nobody knew what to do.

Vergil had said…he’d said things would be better after Mundus got taken out. She’d believed that because he said it. Now he was chasing down demons, noble demons, and torturing them for information. Vergil never said it but Kat was his oldest friend, she could read between the lines.

What information though? He hadn’t wanted Dalliance until he found out about the ley line intersection there and the tear between worlds. He hadn’t cared about the angels until…when did he start caring about the angels? Always? Never? Why couldn’t she remember him ever talking about them?

She…she frowned, grit her teeth. Tried to focus on this, here and now. Vergil had left her here because he trusted her. She had to trust him too. Except…except…

_— “He didn’t want to go back for you, I…I had to force him.”_

_“I understand Dante, he couldn’t sacrifice everything we’d worked for just for me. I’m glad he didn’t” —_

Except something ugly was rolling in her stomach. Something terrible. She…she didn’t care what Vergil’d said. He wasn’t helping anyone, not like he’d promised. He’d killed Mundus but the world was worse than ever. People were dying and he wasn’t doing anything!

Kat could though. _She_ could. He’d left her behind to be in charge, to keep an eye on everything. Well, she would.

Barbas used to have eyes everywhere and after Dante killed him most of that network had shut down, but some of it hadn’t. The important places hadn’t. Devil’s Dalliance had been important.

Her fingers trembled over the keys, hesitation holding her still, but in the corner, in the minimized window, the death count was still rising.

She pulled up the program, inputted the password Vergil had found, and then Kat could see _everything_.

_— “…angels could cross into our world through Dalliance too” —_

* * *

Stepping through the portal feels as disorienting as stepping between worlds. His stomach drops and his heart squeezes, but there’s no reason for it. The gravity is fine and Dante is there, right there, with him.

They’re okay. They survived the waste of time meeting with Seere, learnt more about Heaven than he dared dream, and now he has a better understanding of so many things. Vergil thinks, all things considered, this counts as a success.

So why does the world still feel off kilter?

“Kat? Kat we’re back,” Dante calls into…an empty apartment. It shouldn’t _be_ empty, but it is.

Vergil can feel it through the wards and spells he layered into the space. There’s noone here but them. Kat’s gone.

Dante pulls away, hand slipping from Vergil’s, and something clenches painfully. Vergil almost calls his brother back, nearly stalks over to take Dante’s hand again, but no. But something else catches his eye first.

The laptops are on. All six spread out across the kitchen, on the island, on the counter, on the table shoved against the wall. They’re on and they’re showing reports, chats, the Order’s whole operation.

Kat wouldn’t have left them like this willingly. She would have shut them down, or at least sent them to sleep, because sparsely populated or not there are still people in the city and the information here is too valuable to leave unguarded. The names of their agents, the carefully timestamped and backed up transcripts of every operation they’ve run. It’s all here, terabytes of data.

So, where is she?

“Maybe she went to the basement?” Dante suggests, but it’s perfunctory. They both know she’s not here, so Vergil doesn’t bother answering as he glances at each screen.

The report from the ground team in Russia, they can’t move the downed Behemoth so they’re setting up a camp. A chatlog from the bunker, Zepar still standing by. A new hashtag for the bloodsuckers in the city, “ _If I kill the Queen Mosquito all the rest die, right? How many health bars this bitch got? #SSSuckMe_ ”.

There’s nothing to say where Kat went, no notes, no video, not even a proximity alert on the security cameras. Except wait, except one laptop has a program running that none of the others do. He frowns at that one, ignoring Dante’s raised brows and cocked head, the silent question of it.

Drifts closer so he can get a good look at the screen and the minimized icon. Which is…it’s an eye. Of course it’s an eye.

Vergil considers not opening it, shutting down the laptops and heading to his room. Give Dante some excuse about Order commitments and Kat’s obsessiveness. His brother would want details, of course he’d want details, and Vergil could lie about those too but…he doesn’t want to.

The last lie he told was taxing, _exhausting_ , and he’s already tired. Besides, his brother deserves nothing but the truth. Always the truth. So, Vergil opens the program whose icon is an eye and…

“She’s at the club,” he says, calm, collected. He’s not going to shout, not going to rant and rave and make a commotion. He will stay calm, perfectly calm.

But Kat _is_ at the club. Though he told her they would deal with it when he had adequate information. She’s in Devil’s Dalliance, crouched behind the bar, where a seal should be. There isn’t one.

Instead there’s blood smeared over the carefully carved runes, breaking the seal, and Vergil supposes that’s Seere’s work with their blood. Instead Kat’s there, ducked behind bar and hiding from the main room, back pressed flat against the wood and hands pressed tight over her mouth. The picture quality isn’t wonderful but it shows the fine tremors of her terror, and when she looks up at the camera, he can see her desperation.

Does she know he’s watching?

“What the fuck’s she doing there?” Dante growls and Vergil freezes.

Panic jumps quick, rabbits into his throat and his fingers spasm. Almost close the window. He doesn’t want Dante to see this, to see her. Dante cares about Kat, he likes her, it would hurt him to see her scared and trapped like this. Vergil doesn’t want to hurt his brother anymore than he’s already been tonight.

Seere then Unsere, Eva and themselves, it’s too much by far. They need time to calm down, talk everything through, and going after Kat right now wouldn’t let them have that. But…Dante cares about her. He deserves to see, so Vergil lets him.

“What the fuck?!” Dante hisses, picking up the laptop to get a better look, and Vergil lets him.

He doesn’t care about Kat— _he won’t let himself_ —not like Dante does. Kat is the humanity his brother never had but always wanted, she keeps him sewn into his skin, and Vergil can appreciate that. Even if he doesn’t understand that need to be human.

And now, after another bit of their inhumanity’s come to light, Kat’s left. Run away to Dalliance against his orders to stay away. Why would she do that?

“Vergil, the fuck is this?” Dante nearly shouts, all riled up and angry.

His brother’s been spoiling for a fight all night long, in the Avalon, in the garden. Like Vergil said, Seere then Unsere, and now Kat. Too much happened too quick and nothing’s happened at all, Dante must be bursting at the seams with want to _do_ something.

Vergil takes the laptop from his brother’s clenching-too-tight hands and sets it back on the table. Then he opens the rest of the cameras and goes looking for what would’ve called Kat out. There’s a camera on the catwalk, one over the bar, two on the dancefloor and another in the dressing room; there’s nothing there. To the second floor then, with Dante hanging over his shoulder, glaring at the screen.

A look in the empty stairwell, a look at the deserted dancefloor from a higher vantage point, and two in the VIP booth.

When Lilith owned it, the office was a technicolour terror. When Vepar held it, she took him leagues below reality. The demonesses showed him uncommon Hells, now something else controls Dalliance.

“Seere opened the liminal tear, Kat must’ve sensed that,” he murmurs, nearly under his breath. He’s too busy watching the flames jump higher, scorching the ceiling.

The VIP booth is on fire, like the Avalon’s penthouse, but these flames aren’t green. These are orange, yellow, violent blue. And the lava seeping up, bleeding through, is bloody, ruddy red.

“He only meant to bring Unsere through or go to her himself but…” the rest of trails off into nothing because well, Dante can see for himself.

“More angels,” Dante says, and Vergil nods, yes.

More angels.

* * *

She’d been six the first time she saw a demon. Six and terrified.

Not old enough to know what a demon was or what she was seeing but enough to be scared. She’d been six and scrawny, all knobby knees and skinny body. Small enough to jam herself into the tight little space under the stairs and stay there with her hands pressed over her mouth.

The demon had…she’d been petrified. Too scared to move, too scared to breathe. Stuck in that closed in hole for hours. She never thought she could be that scared again. Not after meeting Vergil and learning so much. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t be that scared again. Never ever.

But that was another lie because here she was, terrified.

Vergil had told her Hell wasn’t fire and brimstone, not all of it. Hell was layers, something to sink into and never get out of. Limbo was just below the surface, where the light could still touch and drag you out. Limbo was easy to get into, harder to get out of, but there _was_ a way out.

So what about this? This dark room with a cold so deep it sucked at her bones and dried out her eyes? A main room that felt like death already, and then up there, the VIP section where Dante told her Vepar had been. That was full of fire, every shade of golden orange and burning blue in the middle. And it stunk. Fuck did it stink. Brimstone and sulphur, hell on earth.

Was there a way out of _this_? Could she run through a door and be back in the world? Or was she stuck? Trapped?

Behind the bar, trapped. In the club, stuck. No way out without getting spotted by those…those _things_ up in the office.

Two of them pacing up and down, whispering between themselves in a language that grated along her spine. Fine grit sandpaper under her skin, rubbing-rubbing her mad.

One like a falling star, burning and burning in the dark. Other one was black smoke and she could only see it when it wisped in front the flames. They hadn’t seen her come in and she hadn’t seen them, not in the eerie dark of the room. Silent except for the hiss and crackle of the fires, dark except for the unsettling ruddy glow of a lava flow-flowing down into the main room now.

She’d crept across the floor, wanted to get up to VIP where she’d seen the broken seal and the spread of a wing. Big, gold, and unmistakable. Except, where’d it go? Not in the main room when she picked the lock, not in any of the booths she crept by, not even behind the bar.

She’d stopped by the bar, squinting up at the office where Vergil had said the liminal place was, and trying to see in the dark. What was up there? Flickering flames, sloughing lava, an unsettling glow that turned the darkness bloody.

Then a voice like metal tearing had snarled words that made her brain hurt and she’d scrambled over the glossy counter. Now she was stuck. Hands pressed over her mouth, breathing in short little sips. Trapped.

She shouldn’t have come here. She should’ve listened. Fuck, she should’ve _listened_. But she’d wanted to help, to _do_ something for once! And when she’d seen that thing, those wings, she’d thought he could.

But now she was trapped, _stuck_. Under the stairs, with her foster father, in Order HQ and Mundus’ skyscraper. But there was no waiting until these things were gone. And there was no Vergil coming to save her, or teach her, or give her a knife to slit the bastard’s throat. No Dante either.

She was on her own again. Alone, again.

She had her phone, front pocket, right there, but what good’d that do her? Vergil didn’t take his when he left, didn’t need it, and Dante didn’t have one. How long could she last like this? Trembling so hard her muscles were starting to ache. Scared out of her mind like she was waiting to be shot again, hands up, waiting-waiting—

**_Bang!_ **

Don’t Shoot!

Dive forward, hands over her head. Protect the head, that was what Vergil said, protect the head.

“Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me.”

Looping in her mind, over and over. The one thought she could think. Trembling on the floor.

 _Scream_. There was a scream building in her chest. **_Don’t scream_**. But she locked it in her throat.

* * *

Dante expects a fight.

He stares at that screen, the security feed from Devils, and sees two angels. Out of place, but not really. One’s smoky and wisping at the edges, like it can’t hold itself together. The other one’s burning, snapping in and out of shape like flickering flames.

They’re nothing like Unsere, or Mom, but they’re angels. No doubt about that. And they’re in Devils, same place as Vepar and Lilith. They’d look out of place except for how VIP matches _them_ now. No more water world, no more electro-shock, it’s all fire and damnation baby.

Flames licking the walls, lava oozing through the cracked rock floor, it’s like the Hell the nuns at Lamia used to threaten the kids with. Shit’d be funny, fucking **_hilarious_** , if Kat wasn’t there. But she is, and his heart’s sinking right out his asshole, because there she is. Hiding behind the bar, begging with her eyes because she can’t use her mouth.

“We have to go for her,” he mutters, and gets ready for that fight. For Vergil to say it’s too much of a risk, that Kat’s “ _just some girl_ ”. Like he did before.

Dante expects a fight. He doesn’t get one.

“You’re right,” Vergil says, agreeing so easy that Dante has to take a step back.

He’s…right?

“I’m right?” he asks, just to be sure.

_—"You’d do that for me?”_

_“Of course Dante”—_

“Yes, and we can’t let those angels run loose,” Vergil says, shutting down each laptop, not meeting Dante’s eyes. But he knows his brother now, again.

Verge’s not looking him in the face but the set of his shoulders, the clench of his jaw. Verge’s just as scared as he is, or not scared. He’s concerned, worried, but he’s forcing it all down because he’s the head of the Order right now. Again.

Which, okay yeah, Dante gets that. Then he grabs Rebellion off his back.

Lilith once said he had heaven and hell in him, proved it with her shitty game show and her shitty obstacle course. Demons can kill angels and angels can kill demons. Unsere said as much during her fucking presentation; heaven and hell used to be at war and what’s a war without a couple casualties?

Point is: Him and Vergil can kill these fuckers. Rebellion and Yamato are devil arms, made to kill angels, but they’re good for demons too because they’ve been modified so much. Rebellion is Arbiter, she’s Eryx, she’s Ophion and Osiris and Aquila; she’s angelic and demonic and she can kill anything he asks her to. Yamato closed the Hell gate, she cuts reality; she’ll kill whatever Vergil tells her to.

Their swords are just as Nephilimic as they are, so yeah, they can kill these fucking angels.

“Are you ready, Dante?” Vergil asks when the last screen goes black. Finally meeting Dante’s eyes, and he’s cool, calm, collected.

“Fuck yeah,” Dante scoffs, propping Reb on his shoulder and holding out a hand. Which Verge takes of course.

* * *

The angels started shrieking when the club rocked, spitting and snarling words Kat couldn’t understand, but they weren’t happy. And her? She just grit her teeth, clenched her jaw, and swallowed down every last scream. She couldn’t scream, not here, not now.

She had to be brave, be strong. She couldn’t die here.

— _“You think he’ll come for you girl? **You** are nothing” —_

**_Boom!_ **

Bottles rained down around her head. Crashing around her, smacking her back. Ow.

**_Boom!_ **

Was the whole place coming down?! Just gonna collapse on her fucking head? Oh God.

**_Boom!_ **

“Knock knock, bitch!”

Dante? Was that Dante?

**_Bang!_ **

Ebony, Ivory, that was one of them. Pounding off, shots echoing in her head. And the angels, oh God, oh fuck. They were screeching, shrieking so high pitched. It _hurt_.

What should she do? Run? Where could she run? Scream? No, that’d bring them right to her.

“Kat! Kat where are you?”

Vergil! That was Vergil. He came for her? Saw her on the cameras? She was hoping-praying- _begging_ that he would, but she didn’t think he _did_.

“Here! I’m here!” she breathed, gasped. Oh God. He could hear her though, he could hear so much, it was always bothering him. So he’d hear her.

But the angels. They were screaming now. A scream that crawled into her bones and broke her blood. He might not be able to hear _anything_ over that. So, make or break time.

She got up. Pushed herself up, with her knees, with her hands. And there was glass in her palms now, ow, but they’d deal with that later. If there _was_ a later. Forget about that, stay focused on _this_.

There was a fight going on and she couldn’t just hide in the corner. So what? So she peaked over the edge of the bar, fingers digging into the lip of it, and took stock.

Dante was there. Of course he was. Shooting at the angel like smoke, and the bullets were _hitting_ it. Biting into the whirl and swirl of black, and…and was it bleeding? What _was_ that splurting out of it?

Okay, okay, Dante was dealing with it. One angel, where was the other one? Up. She looked up and there it was, the one like fire, pinned to the wall of that second-floor room. The room that was on fire too.

Pinned by…by glowing blue swords. Vergil’s.

“Vergil!” she yelled, spotting him finally. He was on the second floor, advancing on the angel, flinging his summoned swords at it. Through the wings, through the limbs, the stomach, the throat. He had it pinned, and it was screeching unholy hell.

“Kat!” and that was Dante. Kicking the thing like smoke in the place that should be a face, and backflipping away from it. Then he was there, right there in front her, shielding her from it.

“Kat are you okay?” he asked, both guns out and firing, keeping the smoke away.

Was she okay? Yes. She was alive, she was okay.

“Yes, yes I’m okay,” she gasped, breathless.

They came for her. Both of them. That was—it was everything. And now Dante was standing in front of her, broad back blocking her from the angel’s sight.

“Can you run?”

“Yes,” yes she could run. But…did they want her to leave them behind? Well yes, what good would she be in a fight? Not much, none. She didn’t want to leave them though. She couldn’t, but she had to.

If she was here, they wouldn’t be able to focus on their fights because they’d be too busy protecting her. She was a distraction, so she needed to go. Okay. Alright.

Deep breath, one, two, okay. She stood up, all the way up, and followed Dante’s steady sidestep along the bar, all the way to the edge where the opening was. He was covering her.

Then something roared.

Loud, deep, and the whole building trembled. More bottles tumbled off the shelves, glass breaking like music, and the smoky angel hissed. Kat got the impression of something starshine blue before Dante shoved her down. Turning, grabbing, and dragging her to the floor with his body splayed over hers.

The place above their heads exploded, something hit the wall with a crack. Plaster rained down around her head, and right before she squinched her eyes shut. Before Dante tucked her face against his chest. She saw something gleam wicked sharp, a blade?

Then a shriek and she couldn’t see, couldn’t think. What just happened?

“Dante, _Dante_ ,” she whispered against his chest, fingers tangling in his shirt. What was going on? Was he okay? She couldn’t smell blood, couldn’t sense it, but he could still be hurt.

Oh fuck, she hated this! This was just like the raid, like the closet. She was just Kat and only human. She couldn’t fight, couldn’t help, she couldn’t even step outside of her body to look around because she had to be here and now.

“Take Ebony. Run,” he grunted finally. Breath brushing her hair, hand sliding between their bodies to give her his gun.

His fingers were slippery with blood, sliding against hers and slicking the handle of the pistol, but she got it. Got her hand wrapped around it, finger hooked behind the trigger. He’d taught her how to shoot this, gave her the basic run down of it, but she didn’t want this. This was _his_ , Dante needed this to fight but…

He’d told her Ebony and Ivory were special, something about them let him fire off different types of magic; angelic, demonic. He’d said they were endless for him, never needed to reload, but for anyone else, just one clip. Nine bullets.

She had nine bullets.

“On three. One.”

Kat squirmed around, got her legs under her, ready to roll over and get up.

“Two.”

Dante helped, lifting his weight off so she could move.

“Thr—”

“Dante!”

* * *

He locks down the area first. With Dante covering his back and Yamato in hand, Vergil uses his blood to seal away the club from the rest of the city. Like he should’ve done from the beginning.

And maybe he digs Yamato into the concrete harder than he should, and maybe he slashes his palm deeper than necessary, but Dante doesn’t say anything, so that means it’s okay. He’s okay.

Then, when he’s sure nothing will disturb them, Vergil cuts the reality around Dalliance. Rocks the building on its foundation, cracks the walls, and doesn’t stop. Because he cannot risk these angels getting out. _Will_ not let them get to the Hell gate.

If they can’t kill the angels inside the building, then he’ll drag the whole fucking thing into hell.

“Ready?” Dante asks when Vergil’s done. When the liquid unreality sloshes against his thighs and sucks at his mind.

Dalliance was always on a drowned precipice between worlds. Easy to jump off and get sucked down, easy to claw your way up. He had just hacked away at the foundations of it, sawed the thin space thinner. Even if he doesn’t end up using his ace, the liminal tear might never be the same again.

And Vergil doesn’t care. Maybe he should, but he doesn’t.

“After you, brother,” Vergil says, raising a hand, fluttering his fingers. Dante doesn’t need another word.

They don’t try for stealth because what would be the point? Dante kicks the front door across the room, draws Rebellion and, “Knock knock, bitch!” points her right at the angels up in the former VIP lounge.

Which look…nothing like Unsere, not a thing like Eva. These are not warriors, or healers, these are the wretched foot soldiers. The vultures sent to clean the battlefield after the skirmish; pretty faces are necessary for such a task. But, there’s still power here. Vergil cocks his head, yes there’s power.

The angels move strangely, not too smooth like Unsere, but rather too jerkily. As though parts of the motion simply doesn’t exist, a reel of animation jumping frames and sacrificing sleekness for speed. The angels aren’t fully in the world yet or haven’t fully adapted to the physics of it.

One, the burning one, shrieks in an angelic tongue and Dante shoots it in the face. A spray of fire and black wine ichor, blood that hisses where it falls and eats into the concrete like acid. The angel twitches and flails, crying in pain, and Vergil can’t help but smile. Angels, just as mortal as anything else.

The one made of smoke hisses and jumps down, gliding over the lava flow, and Dante shoots it to the ground. His brother pins an angel with a hail of hellfire bullets and advances on it. Vergil will take the other one then.

“Kat! Kat where are you?” he shouts over Dante’s guns, over the angels screaming. They saw her behind the bar but is she still there? He should go—no. The other one’s getting up, pulling itself back together.

 _Damn it_.

Vergil snarls, under his breath where no one can hear, and slashes down with Yamato. The angel shrieks in more pain, Yamato cutting it from this reality, but it drags itself back quicker than before. _Damn it._

He should go for Kat, get her out and away somewhere safe, but he can’t let the angel move. And he _won’t_ leave his brother to deal with two of these things. So, Vergil scales the wall and gets up onto the second floor, launching summoned swords as he stalks closer.

The flames burst around each one, splattering nastily, but that acid blood is eating away at the spectral energy. His swords are breaking so Vergil does not let up. He keeps every step measured, every summoned sword sharp, and tightens his grip on Yamato. She can kill it. If he can cut this thing with her steel, she can kill it.

“Vergil!” Kat howls from down below, behind the bar, and he misses a step. Misses a sword.

A wing wrenches out of place with a sickening sound. A sizzling wet noise that hisses in his throat. And he flings Yamato herself at it, straight through the wing and up to the tsuba. Then he ducks behind a booth to avoid the blood as the angel thrashes in agony and rage. It’s so caught up in its pain that Vergil risks switching his focus and reorienting himself in the room.

Down below Dante’s got Kat, is shuffling along the length of the bar while she shadows him. The angel below is screeching but it can’t get up, Dante’s demonic energy is too much. He’s got this, he’ll take care of it and they’ll be—they—

…Vergil’s coat flaps open, and the buttons scatter. He hears them bouncing away and—and he—he’s coughing up blood. A wet glob of it, a copper mouthful. Then he drops to his knees, hard enough to rattle his teeth and jolt the—the—the sword in his…Yamato’s…she.

He catches himself, barely, and he can’t—he’s spitting blood. No, it’s drooling past his lips, wet and stringy. And he has to…gets a hand around Yamato’s where she’s. His heart is…and his spine. She pierced right through him, and he can’t…

_— Hands and head bleed and bled—no, they bled a lot, that’s what the book said. —_

Vergil stares with eyes that don’t see and drags a wretched breath down into his cut lungs. Yamato is silent in his head, nowhere he can hear, and why?

He’s wet? No, he’s bleeding. Warm between his fingers, blood seeping past Yamato and down his chest. And he can’t hear her. But he hears the angel. The thing made of fire and flame that’s screeching behind him, incomprehensible, but…Vergil wheeze another breath. There are words in the cacophony, words he can almost understand.

It’s happy. It’s _mocking_ him.

The roar tears itself out of his throat, out of his skin, and the world stops. The fire freezes, the blood stills mid-gush, and the world stops.

Vergil looks down at his chest, where his own sword’s impaled him, and sneers. Pitiful, pathetic. To be undone by something so _foolish_.

He has a hand around her, holding her loosely, like a lover. What was he going to do with that? Doesn’t matter because he tightens his grip until it cuts and grits his teeth until they grind. Then, he shoves her back. Back through his flesh, his muscle and meat.

He coughs, gags more blood, but he doesn’t stop. Not until she’s out. Until she drops to the floor with…with his amulet. The only thing of his last life left. Besides his brother, besides his blade. No, no it really is the only thing left because his brother and his blade are part of the second life he made for himself.

Eva’s amulet, Mother’s gift. The blue stone breaks when it hits the floor, pieces scattering like buttons and…and what? What does? What is?

“Dante!”

The roar breaks, stops like it was strangled. Vergil blinks, sucks down a breath, and grabs his sword.

His hand slipping on her tsuka, bloody and shaking, but he wraps his fingers around her and forces himself to his feet. Down on the floor, Dante’s caught in the angel’s whip. Dante’s _bleeding_ in the angels’ whip and Vergil can’t—he can’t.

“ _Die like all Nephilim die_ ,” the burning one croons in a language Vergil finally understands. And he stops.

He looks back over his shoulder where that one is, wings spread wide, head cocked. All of his summoned swords are gone and the angel’s on the edge of the lounge between worlds, ready to step into this one. Vergil’s heart thumps, ragged-jagged- _healing_.

Is this fear? No. He’s not scared. Of what the angel will do, what can happen. He looks at that burning thing. At the place where the halo should be, according to the texts, and there’s nothing.

Only a human shaped thing, with wings. Demons could have wings.

 _“Die like your weak mother died,”_ the burning thing laughs, like flames spitting on water.

And the angel pulls a spear out of nothing. Wickedly long, and barbed, made of a metal Vergil doesn’t know. Levels it at him.

_“Die like your abomination brother will d—”_

A spray of fire and black wine ichor. The angel’s head splatters from three demonic bullets. And Vergil doesn’t waste the opportunity.

He jumps between space, teleporting himself into the lounge behind the thing, and slices the angel’s head off with Yamato.

* * *

The kickback hurt, dug the glass into her torn up hands, but Kat refused to let it stop her. She sighted along the barrel again, like Dante taught her, and squeezed the trigger. One more, another. Three. Three bullets right in the angel’s fucking head.

The burst of light was bright, painfully bright, but she dared not take her eyes off it. Kat watched the body slump, wings falling just a little, then held her breath as Vergil teleported. One second of not knowing where he went. If he was still here.

Then Yamato was glinting in the angel’s light before slicing right through its fiery neck.

Silence. Darkness. A perfect moment. Where she could hear the thump of the angel’s head and the crash of her own heart in her chest. Where everything was ruddy dark again and bitterly cold. Then, chaos.

The smoke angel screeched, keened. Angry? Oh God it was angry now, and it still had Dante wrapped up in a whip made of metal, all barbed and bladed. In the new-old darkness, Kat could barely make out the angel, but she could see the whip just fine, and Dante too. On his knees, bloody where the barbs had cut through his clothes and hooked into his flesh.

He was holding the last loop of it away from his throat with Eryx, but his hands were pinned there. He couldn’t move without getting sliced to bits. She had to _do_ something.

“Let him go!” she shouted, turning Ebony on that one. Six bullets left.

Could she buy enough time for Vergil to get it? Or break the hold on the whip? God she hoped.

In the darkness, the first bullet went wide, flew right past the angel and hit the wall with a burst of plaster. Fuck!

Get it together Kat! Okay. She breathed, centred herself, she couldn’t see smoke in the dark so…so move, get the lounge behind the angel and the light from the fire would make it a silhouette. And aim at something bigger too, she couldn’t keep going for the head so wing?

Yeah, wing, wing would work. Getting the angle was harder, keeping an eye on the angel, one on the cracked up ground, a glance at Dante. Half a lifetime or half a minute it was still too long before she got in a good position, and then, only five bullets left.

Right. She raised the gun, like Dante showed her, got her finger around the trigger and breathed in. Pick the target, a wing, breathed out as she squeezed and…yes!

More screeching, pitching up higher and higher until she could barely hear it. But it still hurt. Made her wince, made her brain ache, but that wasn’t important. The angel jerked to the side and she moved with it, readjusting her grip.

Dante was fighting, thrashing around in the wrap of the whip and cutting himself on it. Could she shoot it out of the angel’s hand? Time to find out, four bullets left.

“Hey, fuckface!” she yelled. Made it look at her, not at Dante. And…was that a face? Yeah, yeah those were eyes. Black eyes glittering out of the grey, they looked angry. Good.

She put the next one right between them, biting down on the panic. The smoke didn’t burst like the fire, but the thing did twitch backwards. Wings flailing, limbs spasming wildly, but it didn’t let go of the whip. Shit.

“Let! Him! Go!”

One bullet per word, her last bullets. One sunk into the chest, right where the heart’d be, and something like blood _did_ splatter out. One tore through the other wing, ripping a long tear from bottom to top. And the last one cracked through the arm holding the whip, ripped right through it and tore it away from the body.

Would that be enough? It had to be!

The body dropped, motionless for now, but Kat didn’t care. Dante told her to run so she did. Right to him.

“Dante, Dante,” it was the only thing she could say. He was snarling, eyes red, but he was still stuck. The whip was hooked into his flesh. Oh God.

“Hold on, Dante. Hold on,” she whispered, tossing Ebony away, to the side. Finding the edge of the whip was hard, it was so long and tangled up over itself, but there!

Hooked into the spot just above his heart, caught on a rib. Getting it off hurt, cut her fingertips bloody, but she didn’t care. She had the end and she could get it off. Work it loose bit by bit, because Dante needed her to.

And Vergil. Vergil was—the angel had stabbed him. Stabbed him with _Yamato_ , was he okay?

Working the barbs out took an eternity, or was it seconds? She couldn’t tell, her hands were shaking so much, her head was aching, but she didn’t stop. She kept going till the last coil, the one around Dante’s throat that was pinning his arms. The barbs had hooked into _Eryx_ , cut into the metal of her. Oh God.

“Kat!”

Wh-what? Vergil? Her head whipped around, eyes panic wide. Where was he?

“Kat move!”

There! Up in the lounge, he was…he was on his knees, crawling towards the edge. And he wanted her to move? Why—

* * *

[The whip drags him off Kat before he can react, wraps around his body snake quick, and Dante barely gets Eryx up in time to block it. A second too slow and it’d’a taken off his fucking head.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZHc3zpncMk)

“Filth! Devil tempered filth!” the angel screeches, pulling tight, cinching the loop.

Fuck!

Fuck he can’t break it and trying’s cutting him deeper. Fuck he can’t _move_. Fuck he’s fucking stuck on his knees holding the fucking thing away from his throat. Blood’s everywhere, curdling in his nose, dripping into his eyes. And pain’s everywhere else; digging into his gut, slicing into his ribs.

He’s stuck, like a fly on a pin, and there ain’t shit he can do about it. And Vergil. Where’s Verge? That roar was him, right? What’d that fucking burning thing do to his brother?

 _“You’ll die like your traitor mother!_ ” the thing howls at him and he—Ebony? Kat’s firing Ebony. At what? He can’t turn his head, can barely see her out the corner of his eye but she’s shooting up?

Where Vergil is. Why’s she shooting—oh, oh _fuck_. She’s shooting at the angel. Fuck she’s _hitting_ it!

Dante hears the head pop, fucking pop like a fucking champagne bottle. That’s three demon charged bullets biting into a burning skull, no chance to stop em, no chance to dodge em. The angel’s head breaks and what’s next? Then…that’s Yamato. Cutting through air with a metal _sching_. That’s Vergil with his weight behind the swing, slicing off the angel’s fucking head with a grisly crunch.

Then a wet thud, a soft _thunk_. Holy fuck.

 _“Zerachiel!”_ the smoky angel screams. Howling, like a hand reached down its throat and yanked its heart out. Dante would like to. Fuck would he love to. Struggles against the whip but no. Nothing.

Throwing himself to the side, doesn’t do shit. Trying to get up tears at his legs, slices the flesh open. Could Nephilim bleed out?

“Let him go!”

What? No Kat run! Fucking get outta here!

Shit, he can’t even open his mouth to tell her that. There’s a blade right across his lips, would cut into his mouth and straight through his jaw if he opened up. Fuck.

Kat doesn’t run, doesn’t. She shoots at the angel instead. Hitting it? Hits it. Fuck. He can’t see her, she’s coming from the side and he can’t turn his head, but he can hear her. Squeezing the trigger, popping off shots. Her boots are crunching glass, she’s getting closer, why?!

Stay back and shoot it!

“Hey Fuckface! Let him go!”

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

And a body drops. And the tension on the whip falls.

“Dante, Dante,” Kat whispers, running to him instead of away, like she should. But she’s getting him out of the whip, unhooking the barbs.

 _Fuck_ that hurt. Quick and slick, doesn’t matter, the pain sticks in his muscles and _burns_. And when she works on the one caught round his rib, his eyes roll back, sees black. He’s on a rooftop, getting his ribs broken open. He’s hiding under a table, watching his mother die.

He’s here, he’s there, and the pain floats on the edge. She’s…he’s…his arms drop. Mom’s head…drops. The tension holding his arms up goes away and his hands just fall. The hand fisted in Mom’s bright red, blood matted hair lets go and she just falls.

“Dante,” someone’s whispering…Kat’s whispering, “Dante.”

Blink back to the world, and the world’s green. Her eyes. Mom’s eyes. He…He sucks down a breath, two. Okay. He’s alive, she’s alive, and Vergil’s—

“Kat! Kat move!”

The shot rips through her, bullet bursting out her chest in a spray of blood and bone. Blood splats across his face, his lips. That’s Kat’s blood. And she jerks, lurches. Falls.

Somebody’s yelling. _Blood in his mouth, metal and salt_. They’re screaming. _Blood’s warm, so warm._ And she’s falling to the side, slumping down, green eyes wide. _And she’s dying_. No…no.

“Dante!”

That’s his name. He, him, Dante. Not Tony, not Leon, Dante.

_— “Dante! Get out of there! You’re in danger!” —_

“Dante move!”

Can he? Does he want to? Kat’s there, she’s right there. Laying on her side, green eyes wide, and her blood’s slicking the floor. A pool of it, and some of it’s soaking into his pants, warm against his knees. Some of it’s streaking down his face.

Whoever’s screaming stops when a bullet bites into _him_. Cracks something then cracks his bones and rips into the meat of his chest. Ha, he cut it open once to make sure he had a heart. Does he?

“Dante!” Vergil roars, howls, like something reached down his throat and plucked out _his_ heart.

Then the pain hits with a second bullet and Dante gasps, ragged and wet. Rocking back with the force. _Fuck_.

He hits the ground hard, back smacking, head cracking, eyes going hazy. Fuck. He hears; Vergil’s roar stretching into forever, like Eva’s scream. He sees; Kat laying there, frozen still, and she’s staring into nothing. Feels; his own blood pooling hot and wet underneath him, soaking into his jacket, and something falls. A weight sliding off, what was that?

 _“Demon spawn!”_ the angel screams and something cracks—and that’s the whip. No. No Verge!

Fuck he needs to get up, he needs to help his brother! But getting his body to move is harder than it should be, limbs moving too sluggish and slow, heart aching and bleeding onto the floor. He…he got his throat slit once, in a bar brawl, lurched his way into the bathroom after he knocked the motherfucker out.

Dante remembers watching the skin knit back together in the grimy mirror, flapping sickly with every breath. That wasn’t like this. Ripped his chest open once, after the prison, with Rebellion. Broke open a rib, cut into the meat and muscle of his chest to see, just to see. That wasn’t like this.

This is gritting his teeth and forcing himself to roll over, onto his stomach, screaming when it jolts his chest. This is staring at Kat, watching her, as a fight goes on behind his back. Yamato cutting through the air, deflecting that fucking whip. Vergil snarling and growling and roaring like Dante’s never heard him.

His knees slip in his own blood as he draws them up, gets them under him. His fingers squelch in Kat’s as he pushes himself up. Stands with a pant, turns with Arbiter and nearly falls his ass back down under the weight. He’s sweating, he’s bleeding, he’s _hurting_ , and Vergil is…

“ _The Host will rip you both apart!”_ the angel hisses, but it’s on the ground. Pinned down by Vergil’s summoned swords.

Through the wings, through the limbs, crucified without a cross. And Vergil himself is on top of the fucker, sliding Yamato into its chest with his full weight behind her. He’s panting, sounds exhausted, and covered in the angel’s blood, flesh sizzling under it. But none of that’s what makes Dante stop-stare.

No, what freezes him dead in his tracks— _dead like Kat_ —is the fucking _horns_ and the fucking **_wings_**. Black horns gleaming in the dark, curving up and ending in a wicked point. Black wings sagging exhausted, feathers trailing in the dust.

Vergil has wings, and horns. Horns growing right out of his fucking head, brushing his hair aside to peak out. Wings growing right out of his fucking back, ripped through his bloodied up shirt and just…there. Both a part of him natural as you fucking place.

Dante doesn’t…what the fuck is going on?

“We killed the Demon Lord, we killed your Zerachiel,” Vergil murmurs, cutting deeper, pushing until Dante hears the tip of his sword hit the floor, “We’ll kill the Host too.”

And when Vergil turns to look at him, finally notices him there swaying on his feet, his brother’s eyes are trigger blue and wet.

* * *

“Kat!”

He’s slumped by _Zerachiel’s_ headless body, on his knees with only Yamato holding him up. He can’t move another inch, he’s one big ache.

But Kat’s down there with her back to the other angel. Kat’s down there and she doesn’t see the angel twitching, getting up.

“Kat move!”

He crawls to the edge, on his hands and knees. He tries to summon one more sword, just one more. To knock the gun away, to skewer the angel, but he can’t. Vergil can’t do a single thing as an angel made of smoke and spite snatches up his brother’s gun and shoots the girl he used to love.

Kat!

Her chest bursts. Her spine snaps. It’s a violent explosion of blood and bone and Vergil can’t…he can only watch as she topples over. As she crashes on her side in front of his brother.

Kat. Kat no, Kat _please_.

Dante starts screaming, but it’s not the scream between realities. He’s not grabbing up his sword and attacking the angel with burning red eyes and their mother’s blessing, he’s just—he’s screaming for Kat. Screaming in shock like a human would, and Vergil chokes down something raw and ragged.

Kat’s dead on the ground and Dante’s screaming and he doesn’t see the angel taking aim again.

“ _Dante!”_ Vergil cries… _sobs._ Drags himself closer to the edge, weeping like a child, because no, not his brother.

Dante’s cut up and bloody. Dante’s stuck in place staring at Kat’s body.

“Dante move!”

Tears, too many tears, clouding his eyes, stealing his sight. The angel is there, right there, and he can’t do a fucking thing about it. It’s going to take his brother too and Vergil can’t help him.

The bullet cracks Dante’s amulet, crack’s Dante’s bones, and his brother’s hoarse scream stops dead. Was this how Mother felt when Mundus ripped her heart out? Was this how Father wept when he found her dead in the burning house?

“ ** _Dante!_ ”**

Dante rocks back with the force of the second bullet, hits the ground next to Kat and doesn’t move. And Vergil can’t—he won’t—not his brother.

Something inside of him burns hotter than the fire these angels brought with them, and something else freezes over. Does he see himself now? Nephilim and burning. Nephilim and cold.

He teleports without realising, Yamato already arching up to block the whip that snaps out.

“ _Demon Spawn!”_ the angel calls him, and isn’t that what he is? Demon spawn, son of Sparda, fighting with the sword once loyal to the Demon King. He slices the angel’s hand off with that sword, the one holding his brother’s gun.

Demon Spawn? Yes, but Angel’s child too. Nephilim.

Vergil doesn’t know where he gets the energy, or how, but he fights like his blood tells him to. Viciously, without elegance, attack, _attack, **attack!**_

He slices and stabs and beats at the angel’s defence. Hacking off a leg, slicing off a wing. He catches a summoned sword and rams it right through the creature’s throat, grins all teeth when its blood wets his face. Angel’s blood burns, he knows that, but he doesn’t care anymore.

He just wants this dead. He only wants this **_dead_**.

Like Kat cooling on the ground. Like Mundus disintegrating into nothing.

Sword after sword, summoned and stabbed, summoned and broken. Every move there’s a sound like feathers, a prickle above his temples, but he doesn’t focus on that. He has to force the thing away from his brother, away from Kat. So he does.

Vergil fights the angel back across the floor, slashing and ducking and bleeding. The whip cracks around his wrist, and he switches grip. The floor beneath them cracks and hisses, and they fight closer-closer to the firefall of lava.

And what does it take? One misstep. One missed sword.

The angel goes down with a shriek, the space around it collapsing into nothing. Down on its knees, featureless face turned up to him, Vergil has it boxed in and desperate. He has the upper hand, but so did Kat…Kat.

There’s an eerie silence as he calls down a barrage of blades; a legion’s worth of swords dragged down from heaven to pin an angel in hell. A drawn-out silence, a stretched-out moment, then the swords hit and the silence breaks. It explodes— _like Kat_ —in one impossible screech of pain as the angel writhes beneath him.

Vergil watches it, refuses to take his eyes off it. Impaled over and over until his vision is blurred blue and burning.

‘ _Well done little Nephilim,’_ Yamato croons, back to him again. Well done? Vergil doesn’t know about that.

He wants to collapse after that little display, after he did the only thing that _could_ be done.

His face is sizzling, angel’s blood eating away at the flesh, but that pain is distant. Like the numbness in his muscles. Like the grief in his chest. The pain is distant because he’s pushed it away to deal with later and _not now_. There’s an angel to deal with now.

“ _The Host will rip you both apart_ ,” the angel hisses, pinned to the floor like a roach and still fighting. Disgusting.

Yamato scoffs in his head, scorns the angel, and Vergil could never love a more loyal sword. She hums happily as he sticks her between the angel’s half-corporeal ribs, coos when he rests his weight on her and she cuts into the black blooded meat.

“We killed the Demon Lord,” Vergil murmurs, feeling the soft squelch of the angel’s heart collapsing, “we killed your Zerachiel.”

And somewhere on the edge of his awareness is Dante. His brother. The one he loves, who’s stood by him through all of this, and the brother he almost lost.

“We’ll kill the Host too,” and Yamato hits the broken ground, cut straight through, but the fucking thing’s still alive. Of course it is. Killing angels could never be easy.

Beheading worked on the other one, he should do that. Or, he turns to his brother. His battered and bruised brother swaying on his feet with his axe held beside him. Dante can barely stand but he’s ready for another fight.

Something about that makes his broken heart squeeze tighter, painfully tight. And Vergil swallows down a mournful noise. A keen, a sob? He’s not sure what it would’ve been, but that doesn’t matter.

“Kill it,” he whispers, voice rough and gritty. Torn to bits from roaring maybe? Or does it just hurt from the sorrow he refuses to voice again?

“Yeah,” Dante rasps, dragging his axe behind him, lurching forward. It takes a while, too long for either of them, but Dante gets there. Undoubtedly, Dante gets there.

The angel is silent in the face of its demise, resigned to this, and Vergil is grateful for that at least. No screeching, no screaming, no musical glass breaking, only the finality of Arbiter whistling through the air and biting into the floor with a wet crunch.

* * *

_“Happy Birthday boys!”_

_And Vergil gasped, and Dante grinned. It was their birthday and they got to have it together._

_“Here,” Mom had said, Mother, “these are to keep you safe and hidden from all the bad things. When you’re old enough you won’t need them, but until then, wear them always my darlings.”_

_Red for Dante. Blue for Vergil. Amulets given with a mother’s love._

_“And my gift to my brave boys,” Father had said, Dad, “These will keep you safe in a different way and teach you how to protect yourselves and everything you’ll love.”_

_Yamato for Vergil. Rebellion for Dante. Swords given with a father’s hope._

_Seven years old and so happy. Seven years living on borrowed time._

_Had Mother, Mom, looked sadder that year? Could either of them remember? Had her smile been a bitter twist, were her wings drooping and sullen?_

_What about Dad, Father? Had he known—had **they?**_

_Amulets to hide power, amulets to lock it away where nothing could touch it and make their false humanity just a little bit more believable. Weapons to nurture that power, swords to teach and protect until they learned how to attack. Eva had wrapped them in chains and locked them away from themselves, for safety. Sparda had given them the tools to fight and the key to themselves, for safety._

_“Now, blow out the candles and make a wish!”_

_Standing together, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. What had they wished for that year? When they were seven years too young and seven years too old?_

_“I wish…I wish that today never ends!”_

_“Yeah me too! I want it to be our birthday forever and ever!”_

* * *

They collapse together by the bar, backs to the wood, backs to the world, holding hands like kids. Vergil’s are soaked with the angel blood, black and blistered where that shit ate into his flesh. Dante’s are numb and tingling, layers of skin regrowing in bits and pieces.

They should let go, it’d make the healing go faster, but they don’t. Dante rests his head on his brother’s shoulder, tucks his face against Vergil’s torn up shirt, and just breathes. Breathes in the scent of stale sweat and metallic blood, normal, natural. They’re kids, rolling around in the garden, full of happiness and giggles. They’re Nephilim, choking on the ash and dust of their first real kill.

Over top of that there’s a chemical stench, sharp and abrasive. Bleach in the bathroom, alcohol in his nose; he’s holding his throat together and waiting for the wound to heal. The chemical smell is the angels’ blood. Not like Mom’s, not like Unsere’s, and that’s comforting. If anything _can_ be.

Dante…he’s tired. He’s so tired, and he doesn’t know what he wants, and he doesn’t know what this is.

Vergil is petting him. Trembling fingers over his shorn short hair, and it’s something. There’s nothing between them anymore. No secrets, no gloves, for the very first time there’s nothing but them. And Dante almost hates it.

 _Fuck_ he hurts. Every aching muscle hurts and bleeding wound hurts.

The whip cutting into his skin, the bullet biting into his chest. Vergil he…Yamato…Dante can hear it. Where his ear’s pressed against his brother’s chest. He can hear the off-beat, stumbling over thump of Vergil’s heart. Yamato did that, the _angel_ did that.

Because…because why? Because they weren’t fighting together. They didn’t have each other’s backs.

Fuck.

“Shh,” Vergil hums, fingers impossibly gentle. Shit, did he make a noise? He didn’t mean to. Shit.

He wants to say sorry. This was—it…it wasn’t…Dante forces an even breath through his clenched teeth and squeezes his eyes shut tighter.

This whole night was a crapshoot from the start. Meeting with Seere, listening to Unsere, leaving Kat all alone. None of it should’a fucking happened! But what other choice did they have?

It was just them in this fucking city. Him and Vergil, and used to be Kat. The only Order members in the state, two of the only ones who could meet demons. It was a mess from the start and they were never playing with a full hand but…but they beat Mundus.

He thought…shouldn’t they be winning now? They beat Mundus, closed the gate, that meant they were better than everything else right?

Wrong.

Kat’s dead now, because he was wrong. Kat’s dead because he thought he was the baddest bitch around. Kat’s dead because…Kat’s dead.

She’s there, in a booth. Under Vergil’s ripped coat. Under Vergil’s _stained with his own fucking blood_ coat.

The tears keep sneaking out. Burning his eyes and creeping past his lids no matter how tight he shuts them. It hurts. More than the ache in every muscle and the grate of his bones filling back out. More than the wet _schlup_ of his broken heart. They were supposed to _save_ her.

Instead what? Instead all they can do is take her body home, and Dante couldn’t even do that for her.

Vergil was the one that picked her up. Dante could barely move after he brought Arbiter down. Vergil was the one that caught him before he could fall. Vergil was the one that went over to Kat when all Dante could do was stare-stare into the bleeding red dark. And think.

Think about the Order-anarchy days when he’d spend his downtime at Order HQ; sleeping mostly, talking with techies occasionally. Think about how they’d ask him questions because he was Vergil’s brother right? He had to know what happened to between Vergil and Kat to make them so weird and different, right? Wrong.

Dante never had any fucking clue. What’d it matter to him what his brother and some witch did before he got there? What’d it matter who they were before he knew them? They were friends, damn good friends; Vergil saved her from the demons and she helped him in Limbo. They were a damn good pair, and what else was there? 

He didn’t care then, but he thinks he knows now. Saw it when Vergil knelt by Kat’s body, shoulders hunched up, hands trembling as he reached for her. How the _fuck_ hadn’t Dante seen it before?

Vergil loved her, same as fucking him. He loved her, he loved her, fuck Vergil **_loved_** her. And Dante hadn’t realised until Vergil was reaching down to close her dead eyes and scoop her body into his arms.

Vergil’d wrapped her in the remains of his tattered jacket. Slipping her lax arms into the sleeves, pulling the buttonless front closed over her…over the hole in her chest where her heart used to be. Dante swears he can still fucking taste her blood. Feels it splattering his face, sickly warm and sickly salty.

Wait no, fuck no, that’s just more tears. Damn it.

Should he feel stupid for crying so much? Crying like a stupid little kid who got his toys taken away. Maybe? He’s not sure. He can’t remember ever hurting this bad before. Not when he got his throat slit, not when he got dragged to the prison.

He’s never lost anything like this before. Never let himself get close enough to anything to lose it. Before Kat and Vergil, who’d he have? Had Rebellion, a handful of shitty bars scattered around Belleview, two guns, and a trailer. Who? Nobody.

Then he had Vergil and Kat, and that was already more than he’d ever dreamed. Then he’d had a brother that loved him and friend who understood him, and it was incredible. Should’a known that shit wouldn’t last. Couldn’t.

So, should he feel stupid for all the crying? Jury was still out but Vergil’s crying too. When he ripped the angel away from Dante and Kat, fought it back across the room. He was crying while he cut the thing’s heart in two, crying when he helped Dante back to the bar.

He’s crying now. Not much but there’s tears dropping onto Dante’s head, creeping down the back of his neck. Off tempo cause Verge isn’t crying as hard as him, but the tears still break through. Dante’s are soaking into Verge’s shirt, what’s left of it. And they’re holding hands like the kids they used to be, back before all this fucking bullshit.

“We should…we should close the tear,” Vergil mumbles after half an eternity, voice rough as shit, torn up.

From his trigger. The wings drooped when Vergil did, feathers scattering away back to wherever they’d come from. The horns faded when Dante fell, there one second and gone the next. He wasn’t even sure Vergil realised, consciously at least.

So they’re gone now but will they be back next time? Dante doesn’t know, and he doesn’t know how to close a liminal tear either. Didn’t Vergil already do that?

And the angels still got through. Or was that just because of Seere’s fucking bitch ass. He’d used their blood, right? Unsere said Nephilim blood could break any spell and Seere had theirs, the fucker. So, other than Seere and Unsere, there shouldn’t be anybody with their blood to break the seal again, right?

“How?” Dante asks, dead around the edges, quiet.

Vergil once told him about a demon duke he shook down for information. The name’s sketchy now but not what Vergil said the duke told him. Way back whenever all this shit started, angels and demons fought because demons wanted to rule everything and angels wouldn’t let that happen. Unsere’d backed that up, so score one for demon duke.

The war went on for fuck knows how long, angels and demons didn’t measure time in years and time was wacky between dimensions anyway. Duke said it would’a gone on into forever if not for the very first demon king. Nobody knew how and nobody else knew who, anymore, but that king brokered a ceasefire with the lord of heaven. Unsere backed that up too, so two points.

According to the deal nobody remembers in full, the war’d stay off so long as the demon king controlled the demon hordes. Didn’t matter who the king was, original, successor, usurper, didn’t fucking matter so long as some royal ass was sat in the throne. Phineas had dinged that one so it was a hattrick for demon duke whoever the fuck.

So, based on all’a that. Dante knows what Vergil’s gonna say, doesn’t like it, but he knows what it’ll be.

“We need a demon king,” Vergil rasps. Yeah, right on the money, but what now?

They need a demon king to stop a war that’s probably starting back up but who? They just got rid of the last rotted bitch and there’s nobody as powerful as Mundus around for the hordes to listen to. Mundus made damn sure of that, so what? They find some hack job replacement to fill in, close the tear, then off the bitch when they’re done?

Is that what Vergil’s suggesting?

Vergil squeezes his hand, strokes his hair. No, that’s not what Vergil’s suggesting. Dante knows what his brother’s gonna say because he knows Vergil better than he knows himself at this point, but he still wants to hear it. He thinks he has to.

“Who?” he asks, dead around the edges, quiet.

And for six silent seconds, Dante thinks he’s wrong. When the muted _glop_ of the lava and the wheeze of his breath is the only thing he can hear, he thinks he’s wrong.

Vergil has something else in mind, Dante got it wrong.

“Us.”

Nope, got it dead to rights.

* * *

When he’d met her, in Limbo, Vergil’d thought she was an angel. Naïve idiot that he was, ignorant. He’d seen her, a lovely girl, standing apart from the filth and squalor of the underworld, and thought she had to be from somewhere else. She had to be some _thing_ else.

He’d assumed all angels were beautiful, like Eva was. So Katerina, the girl in Limbo, had to be an angel, it was the only thing that made sense. And why shouldn’t he have found an angel? He was Nephilim, _of course_ he find half of his heritage down there.

Naïve, as he’d said, and ignorant. He thought he knew how the world worked, every wretched part of it.

Angels were beautiful, demons were filth, and Kat was divine. He had to know her, befriend her, and get her fighting for his cause. So he did, even after he learned she was just a scared little psychic running away from her demonic reality. He’d talked to her and taught her what little he already knew. He’d killed for her, his first human kill, and he—because he…loved her.

Damn it.

The angels bleed out slowly, every drop hissing as it falls, Kat bled out quick and her blood’s stained into the floor. She was dead the second the bullet broke her spine, dead before she felt it hit. She didn’t suffer and what a carrion comfort that was. She didn’t feel any pain but she never got last words, a last laugh, one last second of joy.

Dante cries into his shoulder, face turned away from the world. The way he used to live before, when he was alone and had nothing. Except not exactly like that. Dante’s turned away from the world and into _him_ , face pressed into _his_ shoulder, fingers tangled with _his_. Dante trusts him still, even after this. Dante…

“We should close the tear,” and his voice doesn’t even sound like his own. Full of gravel and grit, rubbed raw with emotion and seasoned with exhaustion.

The fight with the angels, breaking past Eva’s last barrier to his real power, breaking out of the Avalon and into an abandoned Eden. The night’s been too long, neverending, and it still isn’t over yet.

“How?” Dante asks, words spoken against his shoulder, muffled.

How? The easiest way would be dragging the whole place down into hell, the foundation is already pre-weakened. They could get back out easily, they have Yamato, and cutting Dalliance away from the ley lines entirely would sufficiently close the tear. That would be easiest, but not permanent.

At least Vergil doesn’t think so. The geography between dimensions wasn’t static, ley lines remained relative but the rest did not. A physical location could shift a thousand miles away and still match up perfectly for travel between dimensions, the only reason most didn’t was because they were held. Controlled by high ranking demons, or angels in the time before Mundus.

If Dalliance goes, a new liminal tear might open in its place, to keep the balance. Nature abhors a vacuum. So, there’s really only one way that will work.

“We need a demon king.”

And there, he’s said it. Finally said it. Which is…he’s wanted this from the start. Finding Dante, killing Mundus, it was all in service of their ascension. He’s always meant to end up here, ready to take the throne with Dante by his side, but now he’s not so sure.

Yes Vergil still wants to be king, of course, but he isn’t sure how to say that. Dante…Dante’s not one to covet power. Dante doesn’t care about it in the slightest, as Vergil’s seen over these few weeks. They’ve had all the time in the world to talk about what they wanted from life, in this post-Mundus place, all the time and no time at all.

“Who?” Dante asks, quieter, almost resigned. As though he knows what Vergil’s going to say.

Maybe he does. Dante knows him now and Vergil knows Dante. They’re brothers, twins conjoined at birth and separated by circumstance, but they found each other again. They have each other’s backs, no matter what. So yes, Dante knows, he must.

“Us,” Vergil says, plain as day, sure as night.

And Dante…Dante doesn’t freeze, doesn’t go stock still shocked against him. Dante doesn’t pull away in disgust or swear, doesn’t even start laughing incredulously.

Vergil suggests the very thing he’s been working towards for years and Dante doesn’t react at all. Is that better or worse than Vergil was expecting? More or less than he wanted? He doesn’t know.

“Haures told me a demon king would keep the war at bay and we aren’t demons, but we’re just as good. We’re Nephilim, Dante,” he explains, tries to stay calm and cool. He’s the level headed leader of the Order and this is no place for emotion, no place at all, but he can’t—can’t keep the words measured and paced.

They’re chomping at the bit, busting from his lips, “That’s half angel, half demon, both of us. Together we’re one of each, a whole angel and—and a whole _demon_ , and that means we can be the next demon king.”

Which—that makes sense, as much sense as anything. Angels were demons were angels, the only difference was in allegiance and loyalty. Corruption would help, sins to weigh down their souls, but they didn’t _need_ that to be truly demonic. And, even if they did, the Hell gate wouldn’t care.

The gate wanted power, craved it as desperately as anything else. The gate needed a guardian that could protect, something impossibly powerful that could keep it open. _They_ were impossibly powerful.

Dante-and-Vergil, Vergil-and-Dante. They were the last two Nephilim in all of existence, twins to a race that had _never_ had twins. They were the sons of the Black Knight Sparda and Heavenly Power Eva, they were practically made for this!

“And you—you’ve seen what the world is without the king! Everything’s falling to chaos and death and it’s only gotten worse over time. The humans _can’t_ stem the tide,” Vergil says and it’s the truth!

A month and more of Limbo’s protection being gone and humanity is still on the back foot. Demons are running rampant and free, free to do whatever they damn well please, and there’s not a thing the humans can do about it. Their governments have failed them, and their militaries are overwhelmed; they **_need_** help.

He and Dante can give them that help.

“But _we_ could Dante. We—we’ve lived in this world all our lives, and we fought for it the way no one else could. We’ve…given up everything for it,” and that’s where his voice starts to cut, where the pain wells back up.

They have, haven’t they? Given up the lives they could have had; oblivious and self-satisfied, disconnected and happy enough. They risked their lives for this world, killed a creature that couldn’t be killed.

Their blood is drying into this floor, splattered on these walls, because they fought for this world. And a girl, dead now too. They gave her up without even realising, and…and do they owe it to her?

Kat believed in the Order, but more than that, she believed in **_them_**. And once upon a time, Vergil loved her for it. He’d wanted to make this world a better place for her to live in, it was what she deserved. Not a bullet in the back and no last words.

His hands are stained with her blood, wrists stiff with it. Dante hadn’t—he’d been dead on his feet, dead in the eyes. Vergil had lifted Kat, tucked her into his coat and hitched her stiff body on his hip, like Dante used to. He put her in one of the booths so she’d be close by, but they can’t see her.

Not her too pale face, grey and dead. Not her blood-stained clothes and the hole the angel’s bullet blew through her chest. Not her desperately small form looking impossibly smaller wrapped in his coat.

“No demon would care about the humans like we would, they’d just—just…,” he trails off, bites his cheek to keep himself in check. He has to explain. Dante deserves to know.

“Humans can’t fight the demons on their own, they need our help. If we take the throne, we can—we can keep them s-safe, and she—"and his breath hitches painfully, voice breaks completely.

And that’s when Dante moves, finally. And that’s when Dante reacts.

He drags Vergil in close, into his lap like at that bar, when they drank to celebrate with Kat. _Fuck_. Another desperate sob breaks past his lips and Dante holds him tighter, tucks Vergil’s face against his throat and wraps his arms tight. One around Vergil’s waist, one around his shoulders.

The noises he’s making, _fuck_ they’re ugly. Desperate, wet sobs that stick and drip. A half-choked howl of rage that he muffles against Dante’s throat. Not a roar, not even close, but it feels the same. Tears at something inside of him, flails in his brain until all he can do is yell.

Angry. He’s angry. He’s so fucking _mad_. And sad, heartbroken even.

Kat’s dead and why does that hurt so much? Wasn’t he ready to give her up to Mundus? She’d outlived her usefulness to him then, and he’d been ready. But that…that was—demons killing his people was something he expected. Humans killing his operatives was run of the mill.

Angels weren’t supposed to kill. Angels weren’t supposed to be like _that_.

“You’re right,” Dante whispers. Quiet under the disgusting wet noises he’s making. So quiet Vergil doesn’t hear it.

He’s too wrapped up in his misery, his heartaching betrayal. Angels were meant to be better. Angels were meant to be divine. But they _aren’t_.

“We gotta do something,” Dante mumbles, and that Vergil _does_ hear. Over his shuddering breath and clench teeth screaming. He hears it, he hears it. Like the shot from the dark and the snap of her neck.

Eva and Kat, Kat and Eva. Green eyes, dead eyes. And Vergil knows he should stop. This is ridiculous! Why is he crying like _now_?

He didn’t—he wasn’t—gah it’s too much! Everything is too much. The rage and the pain and the swell of love as Dante rocks him.

“You’re right.”

* * *

They leave Kat in the club because it’s safe enough. Hidden in the booth and tucked away is safer than where they’re going.

They will come back for her. Dante doesn’t say it and Vergil doesn’t mention it, but they don’t need to. If they—when they finish this, they will come back for her and give her the kinda funeral she deserves.

Right now, squinting in the too bright sunlight, Dante doesn’t know what that would be, but they’ll figure it out.

“It should be easier to get up this time, we only need to get to the elevator,” Vergil says, voice still a lil shot, but Dante doesn’t think there’s anything physically wrong. It’d be healed by now if there was.

They spent the last of the night in the club, together, healing up and resting. Vergil holding Dante, Dante holding Vergil, neither of them looking too hard at that dark corner booth. This time yesterday…well he wasn’t awake yet, too fucking early for him but, but this time yesterday Kat was awake and _alive_.

He coughs, to get the too tight feeling out, and breathes deep. The air’s still got that bite of real early morning to it, even though the sun’s already peaking over the ruined buildings. And the sky’s bluer than blue, it’s gonna be another beautiful day. And ain’t that fucked up?

It’s a perfect kinda day, not a cloud in the sky. When Eva—when they left the house, the sky was bloodshot red. Streaky afternoon and fire. When Mundus bit the fucking dust, the air of full of lightning, kicked up with smoke. And now? Another Limbo City summer classic, perfect day to hit the Belleview boardwalk and make memories to last a lifetime.

Ain’t that fucked up.

“Yeah? We’re heading there on foot?” Dante asks after a little bit, glancing at Verge who’s just standing there. Not looking at the sky, not looking at the buildings, not looking at anything really.

His hair’s out of that slicked back style, flopping in his eyes, and it makes him look uh realer? Dante doesn’t know how exactly to describe it. Verge looks more like himself, somehow. No gloves, no coat, just a ripped up, bloodied up shirt and skin a little too pale; yeah, it’s Verge.

“If you don’t mind it? I…it feels more right than teleporting in,” Verge explains with a shrug which yeah, Dante gets that. It _would_ feel weird cutting right into Mundus’ office and just…opening the gate again.

They’re gonna be kings and that’s… _fuck_. That’s something. He almost wants to ask if it’s all some big joke. Verge’s joking right? They can’t be kings, well Dante can’t. He’s too uh, not kingly.

But one look at Vergil’s face and no yeah, not a joke.

“Lead the way, brother,” Dante says, fluttering his fingers like Verge did when they came in.

The walk is boring. He wants to say otherwise but it is. There’s nothing here anymore, no people, no shops, not even demons’re out right now. It’s just them walking down an empty street towards the one building still standing in that part of town. Silver Sacks.

Vergil doesn’t say anything as they walk, because there’s nothing to say. Nah, that’s not true, there’s plenty to say. About all the shit they found out last night, about Mom and Dad and the angels, but it’s still too raw. Dante figures Vergil filed it all away to unpack and categorise later, after they do this.

Uh what else then? They could talk about this batshit insane thing they’re gonna do, that’s something. Closer they get to Sacks the worse the roads get. Huge crater holes, chasms broke down to the bedrock. He’s gotta glide over some, use Ophion to drag his ass over others. Verge does quick teleport jumps, gliding a little bit too, and they manage okay.

How would they even become king? Verge just said they would like it’d be easy? Just head up to the gate, open it, and bam, done. Now introducing the new Kings of Hell, lemme hear all you sluts and fucks make some noise. Yeah, weird how he doesn’t think it’ll be that easy.

But they climb and jump and glide closer, and Dante still doesn’t ask. There’s something about this trek that makes him not wanna talk. Is it all the silence around them? Nothing alive but them, no sound except the racket they’re making scrambling over a chunk of building.

The sun creeps higher and Dante feels it in the back of his head, washing over the back of his neck. There’s…there’s a weird kinda calm settling over him now. After the shock and pain of Kat’s—of last night.

If he doesn’t think about the details, he’s almost okay. The ache’s still there but it’s ignorable. Shove into a box and focus something else-able.

He does that. Focuses on finding a path through the mess and not busting his ass on loose rubble. He focuses on Vergil right next to him, sometimes in front of him. When Verge’s in front, he can see Verge’s tattoo peaking through the tears in his shirt. Same as his. And seriously, is that a Nephilim thing or’re they just special?

Probably special, Mommy and Daddy’s special little boys.

Sun says it’s maybe eight when Sacks is right there in front them. Just one last gorge to jump and they’ll be on the front step. Hell, if they get the angle right, they can crash right into the lobby.

“How do you wanna do this?” Dante asks, crouching to get a better look. Sacks really is the only thing still standing out here. It’s got some busted windows and a chunk out the foundation, some flooding in the basement, but it’s standing. More’n most of the wrecks can say.

The fall wouldn’t hurt either of them, ‘s only thirty feet, but it’d a pain to climb back out and Vergil doesn’t answer right away. He takes his time stalking along the edge of the drop off instead. Twenty feet left, twenty feet right, then back to where Dante’s waiting with a huff.

“Dreamrunners in the lobby, three,” Vergil says and Dante has no idea how he knows that, but he’s probably right. Two of them could take out those teleporting ninja bitches easy but Dante hates fighting those squirmy pieces of shit. So, no lobby.

Well, second storey’s got some broken windows and an exposed support beam. Dante doesn’t ask before he grabs Verge by the waist and drags the two of them up there, zipping clean over the drop and bypassing the demons. Too easy.

And that’s what the whole thing is. Too easy. The make their way further into the tower from the edge of the second floor, not talking, just listening. The dreamrunners don’t clock them when they hit the elevator shaft, not even when they realise they can’t use it and gotta kick in the stairwell door. Nothing jumps out when they dart into it, nothing so much as farts when they start climbing.

So, one hundred-sixty floors. Up and Up. They go as quiet as they came, Vergil in front, Dante bringing up rear with Rebellion on his back and the girls in his hands, even though…he cleaned Ebony out. Scrubbed her down at the club with a bottle of Jack and a piece of his ripped to shit shirt.

She’s fine, it’s fine. Ebony’s clean and resting in his palm exactly where she belongs. That’s…fine.

_— "One day, all of humanity will be enslaved to Mundus”_

_“so this is corporate Hell.” —_

There’s nothing. In the building, in the stairwell. Just time going up and up in sickening loops. Around and around taking them higher. Fifty floors, sixty, seventy, starts getting cold. Around and around taking them lower. Eighty, ninety, big ole hundred, air turns sharp. One hundred and five, ha don’t get off there. One ten and his neck starts prickling.

Last time the whole place was stuffed full of fuckers trampling each other to take a bite out of him. Now, there’s just a freezing wind tearing through the empty floors and the sound of their footsteps echoing around them. _Clunk-clunk_ on metal steps.

It’s making him antsy. Something’s here, something’s _gotta_ be here, but he doesn’t know what and it’s scratching the inside of his brain raw. Ants under his skin, electric humming in his bones, warden’s gonna flip the switch real soon and light him up.

And when Vergil stops, just freezes mid-step, Dante swears he hears that tell-tale crackle of something crack-bang electric.

“Dante, there’s another angel up there,” Vergil breathes and…and _fuck_.

* * *

They’re on the hundred and twenty-first floor when the unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach slams into his kidneys and stops him dead. Blood runs cold, blood freezes solid. Angel. It’s an angel. Up there in Mundus’ office.

How? Why didn’t he sense it before? Why hadn’t Dante?

“Dante, there’s another angel up there,” he whispers, eyes so wide, jaw clenched tight.

Another one. So there were three? Or more? Did the one up there already open the gate? No, couldn’t have, he would’ve felt that. Right?

“Vergil…Vergil!”

Dante shakes him, hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of it and he breathes in sharp enough to bleed. Yes, yes of course. This is no time to panic. Though his heart aches with a phantom pain and his ears ring with that one shot.

“I—yes, we need to keep going,” he mumbles, blinking hard, swallowing harder. He’s killed an angel, fought back another, what’s one more? Nothing.

Angels are the same as demons, just as petty and pathetic and mortal. But he still reaches back and takes Dante’s waiting hand.

There are no words as they start the climb again, there were no words when they started at the bottom. Maybe there should have been. At least an explanation of how he thought this would work.

With plenty of luck and blood to match, was his best guess, and he can say that right now. Open his mouth and speak, but he doesn’t. He holds on tighter, palm to palm, Dante’s very warm. Is Dante worried about what might happen too? Would he say?

One hundred thirty. Yes, maybe, if Vergil asked. Dante might do anything in the world if he asked because Dante loves him.

One hundred forty. Dante loved Kat too and her death _hurt_ him. Vergil never wants to hear his brother scream like that again, never wants Dante to be in that much pain.

One fifty and ten to go. Part of the stairwell wall’s destroyed here and shows them a dizzying drop out over the city. And Vergil remembers being fifteen and full of spite, full of more rage than he knew what to do with. Because something was missing, some ** _one_** wasn’t where they were supposed to be.

And when he was fifteen and powerless, climbing out onto a narrow ledge a hundred feet in the sky was the closest to powerful he could be.

One fifty-one and Dante tugs him along when he stops too long, stares at the drop too long. Would a fall like that have killed then? Would it kill him now?

The wind is whipping the side of the tower, beating against it with all the rage Vergil wants to feel. The sky is churning, angry like Vergil knows he should be. There’s a charge in the air, power accumulating. There’s a storm rolling in.

Fifty-three, four, six, eight, nine, and one hundred and sixty. One hundred and sixty floors up above the world so high, ready to strike an angel from the sky. The sucker punch pain of the angel’s presence sharpens into a scalpel peeling apart his brain and Vergil forces himself to breathe.

This angel is different from the ones they killed down in Dalliance, but he can’t place how. Is it power or rank? And something in him must bely that confusion because Dante squeezes his hand, reassures him again, and they approach Mundus’ office.

The last time they were here, they had words of encouragement for each other. This time, they don’t need words.

They kick the door in together this time, keep close to each other as they stalk into the room. Rebellion makes her appearance on Dante’s back and Yamato hums to being at his hip. They won’t be caught unawares again.

“Sons of Eva.”

They don’t catch the angel unawares either.

This one, not like the other two, looks almost human. It has a handsome face, fine features, pluck off the wings, smooth away the contempt and it would fit right in with the global elite Vergil used to know. But there’s a lot he knows and looking human does not a human make.

That’s _alien_ intelligence and _alien_ hatred filling up those calm blue eyes. That’s _angelic_ scorn twisting full lips down in a sneer. Unnatural inhumanity. What does it see when it looks at them? Because Vergil sees an angel like Unsere, so out of place that it’s warping the reality around it.

Yes the wings arching up behind its back are feathered, they do make it look like a stained-glass saviour, but the colour is unsure. A shade of pale blue that doesn’t exist, speckled in shadows that shouldn’t exist. Because though the clouds of war are gathering, and though they’re blotting out the sun, they haven’t yet.

Not where the angel is standing. In front the gate, blocking the gate.

It’s closed, for now. And the sun is still there, for now. But Vergil knows they won’t have a chance like this again. If the storm breaks, so does the world. This is their last chance, they won’t get another.

But he can’t look at the angel, not directly. Unsere’s power was calming, a deathly calm. The angels in Dalliance were frenetic anxiety. This one is an electric shock to the spine, sick in the back of his throat, _wrong_.

Dante scoffs, disgusted, and Vergil knows his brother thinks the same. They both look away as one, focusing on the cracked walls, the dishevelled floor. They can’t look at the angel, but they don’t need to look at it to kill it.

“You dispatched Kushiel and Zerachiel, an unfortunate but acceptable loss,” the angel says, and its voice is calm, neutral. There’s not a hint of a scream or angelic shriek there, and Vergil wonders about the other two. Kushiel and Zerachiel, those are names he’s seen, and they weren’t higher choir.

So, Kushiel and Zerachiel, guardians at the hole in the fence while this one came to the gate. Fire and smoke fighters, foot soldiers. What is this one then? An angel in flux, an angel with power. How much? Vergil doesn’t know.

So he keeps his eyes firmly on the gate as he and Dante advance, one hand on Yamato, ears pricked for the slightest noise. He’s ready for attack, to hear it coming. The angel in his peripheral doesn’t move, but it can’t stay static. The shadows twitch, the radiance falling off its wings dazzles.

It’s watching them inch closer balefully. Will those eyes close when he lops off its head?

“And you dethroned Mundus, so I suppose there’s something commendable there,” the angel hums, lifting a hand to its face, doing something by its mouth. Tapping its chin?

“If you surrender, I won’t kill you, and if you renounce your filthy father’s blood, the Host might even accept you.”

Dante reaches for Rebellion and Vergil rests a hand on Yamato, ready to draw her and end this. The angel doesn’t twitch as they close in on it, five scant steps away.

“Or you can fight and die like your traitor mother,” the angel smiles, “your choice.”

Eva, mother. The angels hate her for loving a demon and birthing Nephilim. Sparda, father. The demons hate him for loving an angel and siring Nephilim. And now, here’s an angel offering them a chance to throw away that hated legacy and wipe the record clean.

“Fuck you,” Vergil snarls, and draws Yamato.

By his side Dante swings Rebellion off his back, and the angel sighs at them both.

“I did offer,” the angel murmurs. And Vergil never hears the hammer coming.

* * *

Once, when he used to run for the gang, he fucked up a drop and got the cops on his ass. Had to steal a bike to get out quick, then he fucked that up too. Took his eyes off the road one second too long and went flying over the handlebars straight into traffic.

The crunch of bone was sick. Wet. The pop of one shoulder, snap of a leg. It didn’t hurt, at first. At first it was just the shock of hitting the road and skidding however fucking far. The free fall second of weightlessness and the stomach-churning wrench of his arm, then smacking into hot asphalt. Road rash took out his palms, side of his face and down his neck, felt like rug burn when it was happening.

He probably woulda gone further but he hit a car instead. Pitched over the handlebars, hit the road, skid then _bang!_ into a car door. Broke his fucking arm on the thing and cracked his head real good. He remembers the sound of it better than how it looked.

The crunch and snap and grind. It was wet and dry and _nasty_. Louder than the smash of glass when he hit the door. Louder than the passenger screaming in his head. Bones breaking, joints popping, shit was fucking _loud_.

He doesn’t remember how he got up, broken leg and all that, but he did get up. Managed to run a few lurching steps down the highway before the police tased his fucking ass. He remembers those steps better than the next part; the grind-grind-grind of broken bits against broken pieces, the bloody breaths all ragged in his chest.

Sounded like he was fucking choking, drowning on dry land. The first taser snapped his jaw shut, chopped off piece of his tongue, and froze him place. Second one kept him there long enough for another pig to break his skull in with a baton, knock him out. Next thing he knew, he was waking up in Limbo. In a cell in Limbo.

Why’s he thinking of that? Cause he’s in the freefall over the handlebars again and the snap of Vergil’s ribs is just the same. Lush and _nasty_.

“Vergil!”

Was this how Verge felt watching him and Kat? Too caught off guard to fucking do anything but stare and shout.

_— “Dante move!” —_

And Vergil hits the wall with a solid smack, a _wet_ crack. Dante feels the phantom pain of it breaking open his skull and stabbing his brains. Then he feels the first-hand pain of the hammer biting into his gut, punching the air right outta his chest. One solid backswing hit and he’s flying ~~over the handlebars~~ through the air.

Vergil hit a wall. Dante doesn’t know what the fuck he hits. Whatever it is, it breaks, or’s that him? Doesn’t know, just fucking hurts a lot. Ow.

“Give up, what’s the point of fighting this?” the angel asks, and Dante sees stars. Fuck he sees blood.

…he sees blood, cause there’s blood dripping into his eyes. Shit.

The angel’s, Dante cranes his neck to look, standing in the middle of the room. Hammer in hand one second, turns into a sword the next, and the wings are stretching up-up. They’re spreading and glowing. _Shit_.

Dante struggles to get up, force past the pain and humming exhaustion. His jacket’s tangled up around his arms, the broken bits of uh desk? Yeah he thinks desk, jagged snaps of the wood are tearing into the worn out leather.

He’s fighting to get at his guns, to yank his arm free and summon Rebellion back, but the angel’s not even looking at him. It’s staring down Vergil.

“You cannot hold back this war. The demon king bought himself a timed truce with the blood of your abhorrent race, but that time is up.”

The sword bursts into flames, blue ones, and Dante snarls. More fucking fire? What the fuck is with all the fucking fire?!

He gets a hand free same time Verge gets up, is shaking the blood from his eyes as Verge draws Yamato and stares the angel right back down. His brother’s standing tall, standing strong, but he’s hurting. And that’s pissing him off worse than the angel.

“With your death, the Host will be free to retake this world and wipe the demon scum from the face of exist—”

And the self-righteous monologue cuts dead. Gets chopped off just like the angel’s freaky ass wing when Vergil gets in under the angel’s guard. Yamato sheers right through the feathers, muscle, and bone in one perfectly slick noise.

The only noise ~~as Dante hits the asphalt~~ in the fucking place.

“Die!” Vergil growls, and hacks off the other one on the backswing.

And Dante, cause he’s got his brother’s back, yanks the flaming sword away with Ophion. Sends that shit skittering and uses the pull to get himself out of the wooden wreck. Yeah it tears his coat to shit but he slips the rest off and leaves it.

The angel’s face is twisting into something nasty, lips skinning back, and Dante calls Eryx.

“You—” the angel growls and chokes on it. Well the word _and_ Dante’s fist biting into the cut of its jaw. He feels the bone break under his knuckles, hears it crunch, and sends the angel sprawling.

One second, two, ~~skidding along the road~~ , and the wings hit the floor with a thump. Another and the angel screams, bloodcurdling, metal tearing. Blood gouts up from the wing stubs, red and thick, and it spits like fury when it splashes back down on the floor. Eats away at the concrete with a chlorine bite.

Next to him, Vergil flicks Yamato, gets the blood off her. Is he good? Gives Dante a nod. Yeah, they’re good.

The angel’s screaming about filthy whore’s sons and demon broods. Its writhing on the floor, thrashing like it’s dying, but Dante knows it’s not. Not yet. Rebellion back in hand and he figures the head, always go for the head.

“Together?” he asks, strolling through the blood, wrinkling his nose at the smell. Shit’s human red but it’s still bleach, and it still burns his fucking nose.

“Together,” Vergil grunts, stalking over. The angel’s on the ground, face down and squirming, clawing at the floor like it’s trying to crawl away. Its back is just a gory mess, flesh and bone exposed, there’s muscles spasming. Nasty.

“More will come. The way is open, they will come!” the angel howls, glaring up at them. There’s tears streaking down its twisted up furious face, rage in those pale blue eyes. There’s a lightning flash that lights it up white.

Dante lifts Rebellion, Vergil raises Yamato, and the angel roars in pain-rage-hate. They bring their swords down at the same perfect second, and the world explodes. ~~And Dante hits a car, glass breaks, bone snaps~~. And time stops.

* * *

[ _He should’ve expected it._ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKD4M03qdHQ)

The blast of power throws them both back. It knocks them away from each other.

_He should’ve fucking expected it._

Their swords cut right through the angel’s neck, Rebellion right next to Yamato, but they’re still too late.

The angel rips open the gate and the world goes sideways.

The shock of power is…it’s unbelievable. It’s a live wire running through his bones. It’s a jolt of death frying his brain. The gate blows open, the sky breaks, and they get tossed aside like ragdolls.

There’s one crystal clear second of seeing the open gate and the slash of blood from the angel’s neck. One too short second of realising what happened and reaching for his brother, being reached for in turn, and missing. By fractions of an inch.

They try so hard, but it’s not enough. Dante gets flung across the room, Vergil into another wall, _through_ another wall.

His head cracks on a corner, metal gouging into his skin, crunching against bone. The pain jumps black in front his eyes. He hits something else, or does it hit him? He can’t tell, he’s flipping through open air, and he’s—and he’s…forcing his eyes open. Forcing them clear.

Vergil blinks the pain away and stares out at a two thousand-foot freefall. A stomach drop plummet that he’s been facing down since he was a child. Will he die if he hits the ground? Does he want to find out?

Yes he…no. _No_. No he has to get back up to the gate, he has to get back to _Dante_. So he tries. Tries to jump, tries to teleport, but he can’t. The magic catalyst isn’t there, something’s missing…Yamato.

Vergil twists mid-air, puts the ground to his back, face to the storm, and looks for her.

The wind’s tearing past his face, snatching tears from his eyes. The wind’s shrieking in his ears, filling his brain with static. Falling Vergil, you’re falling, and there’s nothing you can do to save yourself.

Silver Sacks standing against the silver sky is the last thing you’ll ever see. All that glass blown out and crumbling down will be your last sight. The glitter of them as lightning strikes, the musical shatter underlaying the thunder. The gleam of her blade as you call.

_There’s nothing but Yamato. Nothing but empty space._

There! She’s there! Falling with him, falling slower. He spreads his fingers and grasps at—

“Dante!”

His brother. Dante swoops out of the tower, and Vergil does mean _swoop_.

Dante bursts right out the building in a shower of glass and plaster, coming after Vergil. But he’s not falling, like Vergil. He’s not holding himself up with Ophion either. He has wings. Bright white, burning white wings. Spread out brighter than the silver sky and crashing lightning.

He’s the angel humanity has always wanted, beautiful and terrible. Then Dante dives. Those gorgeous wings tuck in close and Dante Falls.

The world narrows to a single point for him; Dante’s reaching hand and Yamato glinting blue. Vergil’s grasping at them, Vergil’s falling, and all he can see is blue. Blue eyes, blue sword.

Which gets there first? He doesn’t know. Yamato kisses his palm, Dante snatches his wrist. Dante _catches_ him. And the world stops again. Dante’s wings spread, full and free, and the fall stops dead.

“Gah!” is a grunt punched between his teeth, a spit of pain that he can’t stop. His shoulder dislocated with the stop, his healing ribs misalign again, but Vergil bites down on it. All of it is a small pain to pay for something so incredible.

“Dante you—I,” but what can he say? What is there to say? His brother has _wings_. And, when Dante tips his head down, gives Vergil even more of himself, horns too.

Spiralling white and swept back from his temples. They’re peeking out of Dante’s hair, and his hair is…this is Dante’s trigger. His _true_ trigger. 

‘ _Exactly, little Nephilim’_

“Yeah me too!” Dante’s saying, over Yamato, but Vergil hears her. Over the rush in his blood, over the thunder in his ears, Vergil hears his sword.

Yeah me too. Exactly. Yeah me _too_. Little. Yeah me **_too_**. **_Nephilim_**.

When Vergil spreads his wings for the first time ~~second time~~ , he gasps somewhere between giddy and wretched. Dante’s holding him up, keeping them both suspended in the sky, but Vergil doesn’t need it. He spreads his wings and catches the howling wind, holds himself up with it.

And he feels them, his wings. The wind ruffling the feathers with cool fingers, the pump of blood and tense of muscle. He flaps, once, and jumps higher, drags Dante up with him.

“We…” Vergil breathes but words still fail him. What could he possibly say for something like this? This is so much, this is _everything_.

This is them.

“Us!” Dante crows, face splitting with that devil may give a fuck grin and Vergil laughs. Pain drunk and incredulous, drowning in relief and savage joy, Vergil laughs.

He drags his brother up, gets his free arm around Dante and hugs him. Holds him. They win. They win!

They’re the last ones standing. They win! They’ve come into their power and they’re together. They win! They’re hugging each other two thousand odd feet above the world, held aloft by their own wings. **_They fucking win!_**

* * *

The gate explodes and Dante’s too slow to snatch his brother. He’s too slow to do anything but cover his face and brace himself. For the hit— _Fuck!_ —for the crash— _Shit!_ —into the wall.

Hits it back first and feels something snap. What? Not sure. Everything’s gone topsy-turvy clusterfucked.

And where’s Verge—no!

“Vergil!” he croaks, but there’s no answer, because Vergil’s already gone. Through the other wall, over the edge.

No, no, no!

He can’t—not Vergil too!

Dante sees a spray of blood, a crack of wall, and there Vergil goes falling off the fucking tower top. He’s in the club watching green eyes go wide. He’s under the bed watching green eyes go dead.

Vergil goes over the edge and Dante remembers getting smacked aside by Mundus then falling-falling- _stop!_ , getting caught by his brother. He’s gotta—can he? Ophion only reaches so far and he’s—if he stops time then—but would that work?

Down in Hell, he unlocked his trigger. Part of the power the demons hated him for and the angels wanted him dead over.

How’d he do that? He never knew about the power but he unlocked it, how? Assiel. Phineas told him Assiel would help him because she was a Nephilim like him.

Three months before, Dante didn’t know anything. Rebellion was just Rebellion, just a sword. He had power, but it was weak. Three months later and he had everything. So now it’s five months after that, and he’s got nothing. He’s losing it all again. Vergil’s falling.

Assiel was a Nephilim, like him. Vergil’s a Nephilim, just like him. And when Vergil goes over the edge, Dante goes after him.

The scream is inside his head. When his wings snap out and catch him mid-air, the scream’s in his head instead of echoing around him, but time still slows down. The world goes white, instead of grey, and one experimental flap throws him higher. Into the sky, bouncing in open air. Wow.

Then he looks down, for Vergil. There’s Vergil. Falling in slow motion and reaching up. Up at what? Yamato. Dante sees her slicing through the sky after her master, Vergil lost her in the blast, and he can’t teleport without her. Oh.

Time’s candle wax slow, beading and ready to drop. Vergil will call Yamato back to his hand and make a jump, he’ll save himself. He doesn’t need Dante. And that’s good! That’s fucking fantastic but…he can see his brother’s face. The blood at the corner of his mouth, the panic wide eyes. Blue instead of green, but it’s the same.

So there’s no question, Dante pulls his wings in and drops. It’s just instinct, like wrapping his hand around Rebellion and hacking guards to pieces. Spilling guts, chopping heads. Instinct like hooking his finger around the trigger and hitting bullseye every time. _Bang! Bang! Bang!_

The world’s slow, and silent, but the wind’s in his face and his heart’s in his throat anyway. Dante shoots down-down, racing against gravity and reaching for his brother, who’s reaching for him too.

Who gets there first? Dante does know. Yamato’s there, he’s there. He gets a hand around Vergil’s wrist, vice tight, then he spreads his wings again to catch them both. Gravity _whops,_ bounces them a like a fucking yo-yo, but Dante doesn’t let go. He’ll never let go.

“Dante you!” Verge gasps, all big eyes and bloody mouth. Like when they killed Mundus. Big eyes and impossible joy, and Dante’s—his heart’s pounding his head but he, he grins. Relieved and happy and he grins. Yeah him!

He caught his brother, he unlocked his trigger; he did it. Vergil did it first, back in the club. Broke whatever was blocking his full trigger so he could protect _Dante_ and kill that angel, but Dante figured it out too. For Vergil.

“Yeah me too!”

Then it’s too quick, then it’s all fast forward. Vergil’s wings snap out, black and starless. Vergil’s horns poke through his hair and curl up all elegant. And time starts again. The world goes grey again and thunder roars, but that’s not fucking important.

Vergil drags him in close, a hug so tight it’s more hurt on the ouch, but Dante doesn’t care. Vergil flaps once and they shoot up together.

They’re laughing and they’re crying and they’re delirious. There’s an ache in his chest, where the ribs are snapping back in place, but he can ignore it. There’s blood in his eyes, dripping down his face, but Verge takes care of it. Trembling fingers wipe it away, smear some of it across his cheek but that’s okay. Everything’s okay.

He doesn’t know which one of them gets them back inside. If it’s him dragging them backwards or Vergil pushing with the wind, does it matter? Doesn’t.

They get back inside, get their feet on mostly cracked, only-a-little-solid ground, and there’s the angel. Body half fallen through the floor, wings gone, head over in a corner. They step down, and there’s the Hell gate. Open and waiting in a swirl of red.

“Any idea how to do this?” Dante asks, still grinning, still giddy, but quiet. He’s almost whispering.

He’s not nervous, doesn’t think he can be. There’s no place to feel nervous cause he’s already filled to the fucking brim with every other emotion out there. He’s relieved and he’s pissed and he’s happy and he’s hurt and he’s here. There’s no fucking room for anything else.

He still asks though, because he’s gotta. Keep asking the obvious questions that won’t have answers cause there’s no time to turn back. The angels are coming, they’re already here, and there’s gonna be a war. Unless they stop it.

The angelic shit sack said they _couldn’t_ stop it but fuck that, they _can_. Dante knows they can, if they do this. So they gotta.

“Blood? Ours, at the same time,” Vergil laughs, breathless, hushed. His eyes are still big and his wings are even more awesome in the daytime. Even clouded over, hazy daytime like this.

Vergil’s wings are huge and so black Dante can barely see individual feathers. They’re cool darkness to put his back against and be safe under. Like Mom’s. Because Dante remembers that now. Playing in the garden with Mom, pulling out weeds, planting flowers, ducking under her wings when the day got too hot.

Dante remembers that now. Wow.

“Always blood,” he snickers, and cranes his head around to stare at his own wings.

These ones are white, like his hair he guesses? White feathers all puffed up and ruffled, but they look good like that. They’re kinda like the stars missing from Vergil’s endless night. Heh, maybe they’ll glow in the dark.

Vergil lets him preen for a few seconds, heh _preen_ , then he’s picking a way across the broken up floor and Dante’s following. It’s half walking, half jumping and gliding with their wings, but it’s easy. The gate blew the rest of the roof off the place so there’s plenty of dull light and when it’s open, the gate glows surly red. Can’t miss it.

The sword’s still there at the foot of it, burning blue under the red. Dante watches it flicker and thinks about their house burning down, the hotel exploding, the club on fire. It’s always fucking fire.

And while he does that, Vergil runs his fingers along the edge of the gate, tapping on it, knocking. Looks like a mirror frame more than a gate actually, but maybe that’s just how it’s supposed to be. All ornate iron frame and untold demonic power.

Vergil knock-knocks until he finds something that satisfies him. Then he takes a breath, tries to push his hair back and when the horns get in the way, just turns around. They’re outside Mundus’ door again, climbing the tower, they’re ready to do this.

“Give me your hand,” Vergil says, and Dante does.

Vergil strips off the glove gently, there’s no reason but he does it anyway. Then fingers under Dante’s bare wrist, thumb bending his fingers back and baring his palm. Back at the club, Verge cut his hand to draw bloody sigils on the walls, sealing in the place just in case the angels tried to run. Dante figures it’ll go just like that, one deep cut to get the blood out.

Except it doesn’t. Verge lays Yamato on his palm, just the tip baby, and pulls her silver quick. Dante barely feels it.

“Give me Rebellion,” Verge murmurs, and he does.

He calls her to Vergil’s hand instead of his back, and she goes with a half-grumble in the back of his head. She knows it’s not forever, this is just special. And it is. Vergil using his sword is…weird.

Pale fingers wrap around her hilt and Vergil lays her edge on his bare palm. A second cut, just as quick, and he’s handing her back while he bleeds. Now they’ve got something else that matches.

Faces, powers, tattoos, wings and horns and cuts. They’re the same, and that’s…yeah.

Blood wells up and dribbles down, hot on his palm, cold on his wrist, and as red as it’s ever been. Dante watches it drop off and splat on the broken floor, and what’re they supposed to do now?

Vergil’s moving him before he can ask, one night black wing pushing him towards the gate, one hand reaching out. He follows Verge’s lead, because Vergil knows what he’s doing. He always knows, always has a clue or a hint.

Vergil doesn’t hesitate so neither does Dante.

“Together?” Vergil asks, except it’s not really a question.

“Together,” Dante says, because there’s no other answer.

Their bloody palms touch the Hell gate at the same time. Dante on the left, Vergil on the right, heel of their palms smearing blood on the frame, meat of it sinking into the warm glow of the gate.

Time unreels, but it’s quiet. No screaming, no roar. Silent.

He’s six and Mom’s hugging him. She smells like strawberries and roses. Here Dante, this blue rose will be our secret, I grew it for your brother.

He’s seven and Dad’s picking him up. He’s laughing, voice deep and rumbling. Here Vergil, you’ll see the portrait better from here. That’s my sword, Rebellion.

He’s ten and Sister Maggie’s dead on the ground, her blood’s on his hands. You’ll burn for this Antonio! And she’s right, he’s burning. There’s always fire and he’s burning.

He’s fifteen, climbing up onto a railing, watching a storm roll in. Ice-water disaster. If he jumps, will the fall kill him?

He’s sixteen and broke as a joke. Hungry too, and a demon’s been trailing him for blocks. How to get it off his back?

He’s seventeen and there’s a voice in his head, scratching his brain. She’s calling him back, calling him home.

He’s eighteen, he’s four, he’s in a cell, he’s trailing after his brother. What is your name? My name is Vergil. What’s that on your back?

—64432B. And a devil may give a fuck smirk stretching his lips wide. Midnight purple at the edges, what a pretty bruise. Perfect brother with his perfect face. They’re identical but ~~Dante Vergil~~ wears it better.

Who the fuck’s pounding on his door at ass o’clock in the morning? He thought she was an angel. And she’s dead. Her blood’s splashing his face. He’s too far away to help.

Demon’s following me, strange one. Does it know what I am? It can’t. Still, rest a hand on Yamato, pick your moment. Wait, wait, now!

Nice pair’a tits on that one, pouty mouth too, she’ll look great sucking me off. And’s that the boyfriend? Huh, not bad, look at those arms. Oh yeah big boy, hold me back and fuck me while your girlfriend rides my face.

Does he have to be so put together all the time? Always gotta wear the mask and be proper, in control, Order leader? Don’t understand why he turns away, why he can’t celebrate this. We are powerful, we are incredible!

Wings, he’s got wings. Huge and beautiful, shattering the light into rainbows. Large and looming, they’re blacker than sin and so pretty. Flap once and take them higher. Up above the world, the only things left in the world. Just them. Only them.

We win! We fucking win!

There’s a voice calling him, saying things he almost remembers. There’s a place he belongs, a world he’s a part of. If he can just find it. If he can just remember the way.

What. Is. Your. Name? Been asking and asking all those days. Chained up like a dog, fucked up like a slut. What’s my name? My name is Dante.

You are the son of Sparda, my last Master. You are the son of Eva, my last wielder. We are their gift to you and how you will survive.

The house is burning, on fire. Mother! Mom where are you?! Dante? Dante what are you doing here?! No quick hide! Get under the bed and stay quiet, don’t make a sound. Please not one sound.

The smoke is choking him, making him cough. Dante? Dante where are you? Where’s Father? Please don’t leave me alone I—Mother? What…Dante?

Dead and dead and dead. Mom—Mother’s dead. And their house is burnt, and Father—Dad is taking them away. Somewhere. Where? Somewhere. Dante’s cried himself out, Vergil’s yelled himself hoarse, but they can’t stop. They’re so tired, but Dad says they have to keep going.

Happy Birthday boys!

I wish it was our birthday forever! Yeah me too!

Falling…fading. Forever and never alone.

My brave boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the hardest and most satisfying chapter to write. I've wanted angels in DmC since I found out Dante and Vergil were Nephilim. It's a shame the game never expanded on the angel lore :/ 
> 
> I'm firmly in camp: Eva beat Mundus' shit in and stole Yamato from him but couldn't kill him because he was hopped up on the hell gate. That's my headcanon and I'm sticking to it. Eva was luring the demons away from the kids so Sparda could get away, and she was of the Power sphere of angels, ie a warrior angel. 
> 
> Rip Kat. I fridged you solely for the angst. Sorry.


	4. It's all about Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're at the end of the world, they're at the start of the world. There was an order to these events, a plan, but now there's just them. It's only ever been just them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No cw this time, there is a link to another song though. The link appears as an underlined portion at the start of a paragraph.

“Yes, by noon Friday.”

When the Gate reopens, nothing happens to the world. The Gate isn’t the pivotal factor in that equation.

“No, you cannot have more time. You accepted this position fully aware of the requirements.”

There’s a behemoth carcass in Russia that hasn’t rotted in the six months it’s lain dead. There are demon dens being ferreted out each passing day, spawning all manner of lower fiend. There are countries which have fallen to utter ruin, and a few that have risen up and overcome.

None of that hinges on the gate.

“This isn’t a veiled threat; it is a reminder. Of your obligations and predecessor.”

Its close killed thousands, its reopening killed only one, and not a human at that. To the humans, the gate is nothing. They barely understand its existence, it’s a power beyond them.

What they understand is death tolls, disasters, betrayal. For two months the Host of Hell ran unchecked and millions died. For two months governments crumbled, martial law was iron clad, riots and coups rose up, and the world spun to a stop. And, in between all the breaking pieces, the demons saw their chance to slip through.

A duchess had once told him, “ _When the Demon King falls, there will be a war waged across existence. Humanity will be wiped clean and the debt will be paid in blood and death_.” Was it war then? Was it humanity’s end?

Millions dead, millions dying. Unacceptable losses, but where is victory without sacrifice?

“The people of the world deserve all of the truth. If you stall the information dump any longer, I will be…displeased.”

In the grander scheme, millions are preferable to billions. Some countries, not all. No sacrifice, no victory.

“Glad to hear sense from you, Mr President, my assistant will be in touch,” Vergil promises.

Two months of Hell, six months of Paradise, eight and the world is his. 

* * *

The world is a swirl of wet red. The world is a closed in pulse. _Bup. Bup. Bup_. In his head, head, head.

Which head though? His or… _his_?

When he opens his eyes, the world is dazzling sunlight and endless skies. Blue sky, golden sun. Idyllic.

When the dust settles and the thrum in his blood calms back down to something he can think around, Dante laughs. He sits there on his ass, and he laughs. Laughs until he’s crying. Cries until he’s breathless.

Because Vergil _always_ wanted this. Because his brother’s a fucking bastard who’d spill every last drop of human blood for power. Because Dante thought he knew Vergil so good, but he didn’t. He didn’t know jack _shit_.

He laughs and he cries and he gags on it. Because, because, because…

The gate’s open now. Open to Hell, open to them, and it’s pure power.

Dante feels it. Clear as crystal, clear as day. It’s beautiful. So much power, it’s like flying high and not burning up. It’s like falling forever and never splatting. Fuck, it’s _beautiful_.

* * *

He tosses the phone away, hears it land on the couch with a satisfying thump, and turns his attention to the newly restored glass. This time the runes were written in Nephilim blood, this time they cannot be broken.

Vergil smiles at his reflection, he did a very good job on this. Then he turns his attention through the glass, down to the dancefloor half a reality away.

Limbo has been remade, thinner than before, but just as secure. The demons cannot break through without explicit permission from their King, they may not terrorise unless approved. Vergil likes that, but he loves that the humans know it.

Mundus hid his power from them. Mundus was _nothing_ to them. Kyle Ryder was a faceless billionaire that the general public never had a reason to know. Governments of the world feared him, the top one percent of the top one percent hated him, and nothing else mattered. To Mundus.

For a creature so addicted to power and adoration, for something with such a crushing God complex, Mundus had left the largest source of worship untouched. Foolishness. Vergil refused to make that mistake.

And he’d already prevented it within the first six weeks of his rule. Humanity knew him, humanity would love him. In the glass, his smile is cruel.

* * *

The gate’s accepted them, Dante can feel it beating just next to his heart, but nothing changed. The office is still wrecked, the sun ain’t falling from the sky. Nothing’s different.

“Dante?”

Everything’s different.

“Dante, are you…okay?”

Is he okay? He’s got no fucking clue.

“Dante look at me?”

No. His eyes are locked on the red swirl of the gate, of the souls its funnelling for power. That’s what the gate does, it taps into the power of souls and uses it in a perfect feedback loop. Dante knows that now. He knows a lot now.

He knows that his mother was a Holy solider sent to assassinate a king. He knows because Mundus knew. Dante knows that Vergil killed Kat’s adoptive father, that Vergil made her love him, that Vergil made her forget that. Dante knows because Vergil did.

Because they opened their souls to the gate and the gate took it all, shook it up, and poured it back in till that shit fucking _sloshed_.

He knows that Vergil isn’t feeling any of this right now, because Vergil always wanted this. To rule, to avenge, to make Order. And what does _he_ want? Him ~~Tony~~ ~~Leon~~ Dante? Is he? Has he ever been Dante? Just Dante?

Rowdy kid, sit the fuck down Antonio. Trouble maker, what do you have to say for yourself Tony? Running with a gang, yeah that’s exactly what I expected from you Leon. Subject 64432B, what is your name?

“I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

* * *

When Lilith owned the liminal layover, it was a neon nightmare. When Vepar seized power, it sank into a watery abyss. The angels turned it into something hellish, something appropriate for the torturers of the earth.

Vergil remembers, from memories that aren’t his, that Sparda’s layover was a verdant Eden. Devil’s Dalliance indeed. And once it was a smoky sanctuary, and once it was a bejewelled cave. There’ve been fae in the dark corners and angels on the poles. And now, for him, there is sleek sophistication and urban grit.

The walls are stygian black, voids of non-being boxing in his privacy. The throne is ivory, carved from the tusk of something infernal. The floor is bare concrete and the blood caked into the crevices is black.

There’s more, leather couches and graffiti scrawl, bullet casings and devil arms on golden stands. There’s less, a ceiling extending to Heaven and more than enough space to stretch his full wingspan. It’s understated overstatement, and Vergil thinks it’s a perfectly blended bit of chaos.

It suits him, but it’s empty, and loneliness is a coiled snake. He’s been lonely most of the life he could remember, and that was wrong. Inherently, unnaturally wrong. He hadn’t been born alone, he hadn’t come into his power alone, and he shouldn’t be so now.

But, he is.

* * *

“I know exac—exactly who you are,” Vergil says, and he’s crying, it's so easy now. Dante can hear it in Vergil’s voice, feel it in his own throat. Closed up and sore. 

There are tears on his cheeks, though, are they from his eyes or Vergil’s? What’s the difference between them anymore? Was there ever a difference?

There wasn’t supposed to be. They were made together, supposed to be one. They were joined at the spine, shared a body once.

“Demon killer, saviour,” Vergil says, knees digging into the crumble of concrete. He feels the sharp dig of the rubble. Again.

They’re here, facing down the Hell gate again. Kneeling in the rubble, again, broken, bruised, and bleeding.

He’s staring at the gate, theirs now, but he’s looking at himself too. How Vergil sees him. He’s not some dirty punk kid with a filthy mouth and a bad attitude. He’s not a gangbanger with blood on his hands and time on his record. He’s not…him.

To Vergil, he’s Dante. He’s powerful, he’s incredible. He’s not slouched in front the gate, he’s gazing into the abyss. He’s the watcher, the saviour. White wings, white horns, white hair, Dante’s everything Vergil ever wanted the angels to be. He’s everything _Vergil_ ever wanted to be.

“You are Dante, and that is everything,” Vergil croaks, and falls into him.

* * *

Well maybe not entirely alone. It’s not fair to say he’s utterly alone. There are people here, down in the club. Six months were more than enough to fix the city— _fix the world_ —and everything that was broken, has been remade whole again. For a lesser being perhaps six months would have been too short, but he is no lesser being.

Humanity had reeled from the shock of the demonic demiurge for two months, scrambled to contain it, failed to fight it. When he’d offered them a solution two harrowing months in, they’d all snatched at the opportunity. Accepted all of his conditions so easily, without question.

Once, he’d thought Mundus total control of humanity was a game millennia in the playing, now he understood it was nothing so complex. The powerless would do anything to change their circumstance, the powerful would pay any price to remain so, and that was it.

So, Vergil is not alone in Devil’s Dalliance and the world is put back together, but there are still missing pieces. Stepping closer to the glass, close enough for his breath to mist against it, he can see those missing pieces. Look, down to the dancefloor, where is he? Not there.

Pick through the crowd, what do you see? Mortals writhing in ecstasy, demons glutted on sin. What does he see? He sees cambion fucking in dark booths and human voyeurs rapt with…attention.

He hums, cocks his head. There’s no hint of lava left in that room. No angel’s blood bitten into the floor, no hellish sulphur scent left lingering. Truthfully, the club portion of the layover looks nearly identical to what was under Lilith’s reign. The front suit his needs so why change what worked?

An errant glance at the bar, and well, some things needed to be changed for a fresh start. He’d ripped the bar out with his own hands. Splintered the wood, burned it in the middle of the room. Blew the broken glass away with a powerful beat of his wings.

Some things needed to be changed for the sake of sanity.

* * *

“ _The sun’s back_ ” is a delayed thought in his head. “ _Storm’s gone_ ” is one more. Delayed doesn’t make them any less true though.

The sky’s cleared out, just blue for miles, and he can’t even remember what the thunder sounded like. Sun’s back, storm’s gone, and he’s a king of Hell. Office’s wrecked, angels’re gone, and Kat’s still dead.

And Vergil’s holding him, wrapped in close so that Dante can only see those clear blue skies through the peak of Vergil’s feathers. Little bits of warm blue between the black, like a bruise.

Who is he? He’s Dante. What’s that mean? Everything.

Vergil is—Dante…he knows how his brother sees the humans now, how he thinks he saw Kat. Or is Dante putting thoughts in his brother’s head again and Vergil really did see Kat like that, just some tool to throw away when he was done with her. Dante doesn’t—he can’t believe that.

Vergil tried to _save_ her. He wanted to **_save_** her. And he loved her. Even though he smothered that love like it was a fire under his skin. Even though he treated it like some kinda fucking disease, just eating through his body without his permission. Fuck, Verge had a shitty idea of love and what it was like.

But like he knew better? What the fuck did _he_ love? Loved fighting, loved drinking, loved fucking. Killing demons was fun, getting high was good. Never had nobody in his life so he made do with one night stands and alleyway quickies, some attention was better than none.

Kat though, he loved Kat. Or’d he just love what she meant to him? A chance to be close to someone, a chance to mean something. Kat brought him back to his brother, Kat treated him like a person, Kat knew what it was like surviving under the demons. She was something familiar in a world of new and he’d clung to her so tight.

Was that love though? Dante doesn’t know anymore. He’s got…he’s got all this information in his head, from the gate. All the kings who ever hooked themselves into it, all the souls they ever fed it with. The stronger ones are louder and his own thoughts are loudest, but it’s all there for him to access, if he wants it.

There was a king that had a queen and he loved her. She was everything to him, he ripped the stars out of the sky to make a crown for her. And when she died because a group of angels couldn’t stand a queen of Hell, the king burned the world down for her. That was love.

Had an empress once, terrible bitch that ruled with an iron fist. Nothing and nobody could do squat without her say so, and she loved an angel. Used to head up to Heaven to see her, the angel, and the empress would bring her gifts. Souls, gems, weapons, anything to make that angel laugh and smile and love her.

When the empress got killed by a second in command looking for power, the angel lead a legion of holy soldiers down into the depths to fight them dead. The angel fell, eventually, and she killed the usurper, inevitably, and she became the new demon queen. That was love.

Love is…breaking past a lifetime of chains and arcing through the air to save his brother.

He loves Vergil, that’s not different, and Vergil loves him. Even though Vergil doesn’t understand him all the time and doesn’t agree on everything, Vergil still loves him more than anything. So that’s—that has to mean more, right?

More than Vergil wanting to rule the world from the dead start. More than Vergil thinking humans were weak and needed protecting. Vergil could’ve taken the throne any time he wanted, he knew how, but he _didn’t_ , he wanted Dante there with him. That means everything.

* * *

He sees her, sometimes. Out of the corner of his eye, when he glances at the security feed without paying attention. He sees her there, in the club, Katerina Mallory, and she looks the same as she ever did. Beautiful and out of place.

Sometimes, she’s just walking through the crowd, fading through the dancers as she creeps across the room. No one else ever sees her, that he’s noticed. Sometimes she’s crouched behind the bar, hands over her mouth, staring at the place where a camera used to be. The bartenders complain about cold spots. Sometimes she’s still on the floor, eyes empty, chest hollow. People tend to trip there.

Ghosts exist, of course they do, but Kat isn’t a ghost. She’s a memory, like Eva. A memory so terrible it left a stain on limbo, a death so charged with power it couldn’t do anything less.

If he were to drag the club further into Hell, she’d become so much more substantial. He might be able to see more than a glimpse of her at a time, but he will never do that. Kat is dead, and she is gone, and this is just a memory left behind to remind him what complacency brought.

Useful, even in death, Dante was right to keep her around.

She’s here tonight, side-stepping along the bar and through poor Desmond, the witch shudders but doesn’t drop the whisky. Vergil watches her from the corner of his eye, keeping his attention on the dancers to keep her in focus, Baise alone is enough to suffice.

The bar she’s walking is different, sleek marble cut from one solid block, but memories don’t rely on reality. In this one piece of forever, the liminal layover is an angelic hell and Katerina Mallory dies every night. Vergil watches her till she disappears again, and he knows she won’t show back up until tomorrow.

She has a grave and it’s in a garden too ethereal for this earth. Her headstone is of ebony harder than any earthly rock and there are no words. Laying next to Eva’s slab of pristine marble, she doesn’t need words to extoll her virtues. Dante wanted them but Vergil held out, Kat never got the dignity of last words, anything they could carve would only be putting words in her mouth. And, Eva’s headstone was unmarked too.

‘ _Because Eva’s was empty_ ,’ Yamato reminds him. And yes, Eva’s grave was empty because Sparda had burnt her before he was taken. He refused to let her body be desecrated and hid the sword she’d stolen off the demon in that empty grave. At least there’d some reminder.

What a reminder. Rebellion had been sealed away, put to sleep in Barbas’ prison, and woken up because Dante was near. Yamato had waited, lain patiently by while the years slipped away and Eva’s son grew into something worthy of wielding her.

‘ _Almost worth the wait,_ ’ she teases gently, but it’s the truth. When she first called, he wasn’t anything, he was a child dreaming of war. He had potential and power, now he has the world. Not too bad for an ignorant bastard.

_‘No, not bad at all, little Nephilim.’_

* * *

After everything, even after everything, there’s still a world beyond the two of them, and they can’t leave it locked out. Dante knows that, Vergil does too, but neither of them wants to be the one to pull away first. The hug is too tight and safe, Dante really doesn’t want to leave this, but he’s gotta.

There’s a world out there, and they did this for it—no they didn’t, Vergil did this for—well yes he did…shit. Vergil wanted to save the world, he always wanted to save the world, and he was gonna do it with Mundus’ power. Change the king, take the power, fix everything wrong.

Shit, fuck, Dante really doesn’t wanna pull away, but he does. Out of Vergil’s arms but not out of his wings, because he’s not pulling _away_ from Vergil, he’s just remembering the rest of the world. He’s not going back on what they did, even if he didn’t really understand what they were doing. Or maybe he did, and he just never wanted to admit it.

He knew whose names Vergil was gonna say after all. Dante knew.

“We uh, what now?” Dante asks, awkward and stilted, cause he really doesn’t know. He’s got so much swirling in his brain, knows a helluva fucking lot, but he doesn’t know what now. That’s always Vergil, always.

“The way is shut to the angels, only we can open it now,” Verge says, and he rocks back onto his haunches. In this second coming, Verge looks good. There’s no bruises, no breaks, no blood. Anything wrong with them got fixed by the gate, so they’re running one hundred right now, and Verge looks it.

He’s hmm, handsome? Gorgeous? Looks kinda like Seere but not out of place. His hair’s white, too white, but it’s not too white for the world. And his eyes are the same star blue Dante didn’t recognise that first time, but there’s more to them. Vergil knows now, just like Dante…does he look like that now?

“And the hordes know what’s happened, they can feel it,” Vergil says, explaining the things Dante already knows. He can feel it too.

There’s the gate beating in his blood, warming up his bones, and there’s thoughts he never had in his head, but there’s something else too. It’s like instinct? Kinda, sorta like picking up Reb for the first time. He just knew she was his and would do what he asked. The demons all over the human world and down in Hell feel like that.

They’ll do whatever he tells them to, just like they did for Mundus. Except way more. Mundus was powerful, but he wasn’t _this_ powerful. He was the best’a the best, for demons. Dante and Vergil are the best forever, better’n demons, better’n angels. No one’s ever gonna go against them and survive.

“That’s…yeah,” is all he can say. That’s yeah. Everything’s…yeah.

Two months ago they killed the demon king and freed the world. Two minutes ago they killed an archangel and took the throne. It’s a lot to process but this was for the greater good. They did it to help people, and they can now. With this power, there’s nothing they can’t do.

It’s…yeah.

* * *

Kat aside, crowd aside, Vergil is alone. The office is so empty and his wings eat up all of the ambient light when there’s nothing to offset them. He lays a hand on the glass, fingers spread, and asks himself the same question: Was this worth it?

Giving up his life as Christopher Alderidge, giving up his freedom as Vergil the unbound Nephilim. Was power worth his brother?

The blank eyes looking back at him say: No. Nothing was worth Dante, but Dante was the price he paid. Vergil understood that now.

The gate had shown him so much. The history of his demonic heritage, the reality of his brother’s mind. Dante’s emotions were overwhelming, his love boundless. Vergil understands, now, that Dante felt everything he could not, all of those locked away emotions, his brother felt.

When the gate showed Dante what Vergil was, it hurt him, because it was too clinical, too cold. What he saw as logic, Dante saw as detachment, what a shock that’d been.

[Down in that other reality](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAOjPsvE8mc), Baise flips upside down and the crowd sighs, half in love. The song changes to something electronic, something rusted metal and gritty with a bass that beats against the glass. Dante would love it. Devil’s Dalliance was a good place for a good time, he’d once said, so why isn’t he here? Why is Vergil alone?

His own mocking eyes tell him exactly why.

* * *

The wing beats are the only steady sound in the whole silent city, _whump whump whump_ , just like a heartbeat.

Vergil opens out his wings and Dante gets up, reaches a hand out to help his brother. There’s nothing that could hurt them now, the gate won’t let anything hurt them. There’s nothing that could close gate, Yamato won’t leave them. But, there’s something coming and like fuck it’s gonna get the jump on them.

They stand to meet it because of course they do, what else have they ever done? Vergil on the left, Dante on the right, watching each other’s backs.

“My Lords, my Lords!” Andrealphus, Demon Marquis of the Night, yells at them as he soars in on a lazy updraft. Glamour’s off, wings out, he’s not half bad. Eyes out, tail spread, he’s still a fucking demon.

“An angel is coming to the—” and Andrealphus, Lord of thirty legions, nearly swallows his fucking tongue when he spots the angel’s head in the corner. All those eyes and he still couldn’t see shit.

Dante knows him like Vergil does now, and he knows Rea was the one that sold them out to Seere. Prince Seere never woulda fucking dragged them into this shit if Rea didn’t tell him exactly how to lure Vergil out. And yeah, Dante gets that this is where they were heading all along but Rea’s the reason the angels got mixed up in this fucking mess.

…he’s the reason Kat’s dead.

Rea’s there, hovering in the air just outside the office. He’s blue-green wings with hundreds of eyes, they’re gold, purple, brown, and they’re all frozen wide and staring. Rea didn’t give a shit about Dante when they met that one time, but he does now, he’s looking now.

And Dante tips his head back so the fucker can see everything. Yeah he’s got wings, big white angel wings, but he’s got the horns too. He’s just as Nephilim as Vergil, always fucking was. So there’s Rea, caught in the air like an ant in honey, then he’s not.

Then he’s in two fucking pieces falling back down to earth. And Osiris is slick with his blood, dripping with it. And Dante’s is pounding in his head.

When something twitches behind him, he swings Osiris around with deadly intent and—the curve of her is caught on Yamato’s edge. Vergil, he swung at Vergil. Shit. No. He didn’t.

“Dante, Dante it’s okay,” Verge says, quiet, soothing, like Verge’s never been for anybody else. Vergil probably _can’t_ be like this for anybody else.

“It’s okay brother, we have each other.”

And Dante doesn’t know if he wants him to.

Dante wants…he wants a world that’s free. That’s what he told Mundus, but he’s seen what a free world is. Humanity’s falling, the humans can’t do this alone, and no other king would help them. Vergil wasn’t right to want this kinda power, but he wasn’t wrong to want it for _this_.

“Yeah, we got each other,” he sniffs, and drags them back to the office again. They got work to do.

* * *

He does buy the club, just like he threatened to do all that time ago. It takes a while to hunt down the proper documents and create the right paper trail, but when one has the world in their hands, nothing’s impossible. There’s a new name on the human lease now and a new owner on the deed that exists only in Hell. Not written in blood though, their blood is too precious.

“There you fucking are,” Dante laughs as he falls through the door from another reality.

And just like that, everything wrong becomes right again and Vergil can breathe. The light comes back when Dante does, white feathers shedding rainbow radiance. The chaos hums with the completion of its other Lord, and Vergil’s reflection fades into Dante.

Dante standing behind him, Dante smiling at him. White hair, white horns, Vergil’s perfect twin.

“How was Lust?” he asks, turning away from the window and all its accusations. Dante looks better in the flesh, looser and more at home in his skin these days. The wings slumping behind his shoulder blades are the most natural thing in the world, a misaligned bone slotted back into place.

The angriness is gone, the loneliness too, and Vergil’s heart aches with how much he loves that. Dante is getting everything he’s ever deserved, and Vergil doesn’t think happy covers the feeling bursting in his chest. Every time he sees Dante there’s a wash of power, waves lapping at his shins threatening to overwhelm him.

“Not bad, alright place for a fun time,” Dante shrugs but there’s boundless warmth in his voice and the surf drags Vergil away from the window. Dante’s happy to be back, there’s only one place for a _good_ time.

Here, the layover, with Vergil. Dante’s name is on the lease, Dante’s scrawl is on the deed, this is his, and so is Vergil. One half of a King belongs to Dante, because Vergil will never hurt his brother again.

Using him to get the throne was enough, it was too much. Letting Kat die was too much. There’s so much Vergil has to make up for, this is just a start. He’s lucky his brother’s so forgiving. Or maybe he’s just lucky Dante doesn’t have anyone else.

“And Rosier’s a good fuck, but it got boring,” Dante says, sighs, and pouts like Vergil’s supposed to feel sorry for him. Oh no, poor Dante, the orgies thrown by the Lord of Lust didn’t live up to his expectations, simply tragic.

He throws an arm over Vergil’s shoulder when he’s close enough, pulls him in for a hug that’s got an edge of desperation to it. Dante knows what’s in his head now, all of it, the terrible things, the manic things. All of it, so he hugs tighter. And, because Vergil knows all the things in Dante’s head too, he clings to his brother and relishes in the affection.

They were born as one and the gate made them one again. There are hurts between them yes, but there’s love too. Enough love to fix the world, Vergil is dead set sure of that.

“You should come next time,” Dante says, leading into it with all the subtlety of a grenade. He wanted Vergil there _this_ time, but someone had to stay back and make sure the humans played nice. At least for now. In a few more months though, maybe a year, the world will be stable enough to go on without them.

Vergil will have people he can trust then, not nobility because he knows how first-hand how faithless they are, but there are a few half-human prospects. Children who grew up like Dante did and know what Dante’s done for them, Vergil by extension. Dime a dozen psychics and witches, things with some humanity, those are the people he will have.

For now, Vergil makes do with demons, lesser rank obviously, but they work well for liaising with the humans. Fear for now, adoration later.

There’s so much that will happen later, but for now, Vergil’s just glad Dante comes back. He doesn’t have to, and Vergil’s told him as much. Dante deserves to have fun for once, kick back and make a mess of Hell if he wants. And he does. Heads down to Wrath and fights himself manic. Saunters over to Lust and fucks himself silly.

But he comes back more. Dante’s with Vergil more than he’s off playing, and that’s everything.

“Maybe I will brother,” Vergil hums, already reorganising his schedule because Dante wants this. The humans will be able to exist for a few hours without them, Vergil has that much faith in them.

And it’s worth it for Dante’s devil may give a fuck grin. It’s dazzling, drags the sun from the sky and right into this office. This place, where angels died and a devil cried and the Nephilim race was reborn.

“Fuck yeah,” Dante says, happy again, and lets the hug loosen into something casual. They stay close because they always do now, they’ve worked out a system for who’s wing goes where so they can walk together.

Not that those are permanent, but Vergil prefers having them out. Why should he hide? Hasn’t he done enough of that these twelve years? He’s a King now, shouldn’t he wear his black horn crown?

“Happy birthday Verge,” Dante whispers in his ear as they turn to the stairs together. The music creeps louder, shakes the floor beneath their feet.

“Happy birthday Dante,” Vergil murmurs, stepping into his brother’s warmth as they descend. Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand that's it! What a ride it's been through DmC:DMC where Dante finally does cry, and Vergil too just for some spice. I wanna thank all my friends who listened to my rambling about this and helped me with the scenes. Also my sister who was forced to read all of this as it was written to make sure the emo edge was on point. 
> 
> Originally was gonna post as I wrote but I never manage to finish things if I do that so I forced myself to write it all then post, except for this last chapter. This one got written up special for my b-day which is today and the entire reason Dante and Vergil celebrate theirs in the nebulous time 8 months after the end of the game. Thanks so much for reading and hope you have a fun time.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, feel free to hmu on [tweeter](https://twitter.com/Darke_Eco_Freak)


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